The information below was quoted from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy website . We suggest that you go to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy website to listen to the tape or read the transcript of this analysis. The Michigan Education Association is similar to the Illinois Education Association in Illinois. As your school districts are negotiating their teachers' contracts take note if the same tactics are used in your district. Clearly you can see that the Huntley school board members, BEST members and school employees have used some of these tactics against Larry Snow.
MEA Advocates Deceptive High Pressure Tactics Against School Board Members
An MEA training audio tape for union negotiators offers a particularly disturbing inside look at the MEA, and clearly reveals that it has adopted the militant "industrial union" model for its organization, rather than a "craft union" or professional association model.
The transcript of the tape explains how union negotiators should use pressure tactics to force school board members to concede to their demands. Among the tactics advocated are:
* Investigate the background of each school board member, including religious affiliation, marital status, age, education, employment, family, politics, "what do his peers think of him?," "what is his relationship with his employer or employees?," and "does holding a public office help him advance in his job or produce business connections?" This should be investigated, the MEA states, so the negotiator will "know what sensitive chords and nerves to hit during negotiation to get the results you seek."
*After gathering information, the MEA recommends that the local union "consider bringing in a heavy from the outside. You know, perhaps your Uniserv director. When the job is done and the bad guy, you know, has to leave town, won’t it be nice when the local association won’t have to bear the brunt of resentment?"
*The MEA tape recommends that the negotiator "use time as an ally. You know, if your negotiating team can get to bargaining sessions well rested, whereas the board’s team is harried and fatigued, keep negotiations going until 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the morning. Wear down the board physically and psychologically."
*"Remember that large districts rely heavily upon the superintendent to absorb the flack. They use the superintendent as a shield. If he is discredited, the rest of the board suddenly feels naked and they are often eager to take an escape route which the association has waited for the appropriate moment to offer."
*"Do your best to split the board on crucial issues through contacts with individual board members or misrepresentation of the issues to the public through press releases. Attempt to carefully attack the credibility of the board negotiating team so that most of the board team’s executive sessions with their board will be spent answering board members’ questions about association charges and not with planning on up-coming negotiation sessions."
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
A tale of two different taxing situations.
The first story below appeared in the Rockford Register Star. In the first article below you will read that legislators are thinking of a tax increase. The second story is an AP story and apppeared in Northwest Herald.
In the first story below Martire made two good statements:
"The honest answer is if you're going to enhance public spending, you need recurring revenue to fund it," Martire said.
"And if you're relying on gimmicks or tricks or borrowing or raiding other funds, every year you create a bigger and bigger deficit position. That's something other than responsible because it's borrowing against future generations to maintain current spending levels."
But the solution is to NOT "enhance public spending" and to NOT "maintain current spending levels". Even his own words show that the real problem is spending, not funding.
After more than 15 years, is a state tax increase inevitable?
By Aaron Chambers
REGISTER STAR SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
Click here for more information about Aaron Chambers
SPRINGFIELD — The state hasn’t hiked tax rates in more than 15 years.
Will Illinois soon hit you with a tax increase? And, as some observers suggest, would a tax hike be more responsible than the state’s nickel-and-dime approach to generating more cash to spend?
“They come up with so many creative ideas, why don’t they just raise taxes and get by all these games and get a solid revenue stream to take care of our pensions and our debt and our schools?” said Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford.
He was referring to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and fellow Democrats in the Legislature who have shaped the state budget in recent years.
Syverson predicted the state would need to raise taxes to deal with its rapidly growing expenses.
He said a sales-tax increase wouldn’t be feasible because it would drive consumers to the Internet and surrounding states.
But he would consider supporting an income tax increase — perhaps a temporary one — as long as the state stopped diverting dollars from road construction funds and committed to using all new revenue to pay bills and debt.
“Unfortunately the problem can’t be fixed with a few small fee increases,” Syverson said. “It’s going to take a pretty substantial amount of new revenue, unfortunately, just to make up for what’s happened over the last three years.”
John Kenward, a senior analyst at rating agency Standard & Poors, said the state’s nickel-and-dime approach is not unusual.
“There’s not a lot of forward financial planning with the states,” he said. “It tends to be budget to budget, year to year.”
Kenward said it’s heroic for Illinois to keep a lid on taxes to stay competitive with surrounding states. But that at some point, it would need “an overall longer-term plan because the revenues aren’t growing as fast as the expenditures are.”
In April, Fitch Ratings gave Illinois a “negative outlook,” because it must start making dramatically larger payments to its pension systems. Public pension systems have $38.6 billion in unfunded liability, which is the difference between assets and the cost of retirement benefits for everybody covered by the system.
Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a fiscal policy think tank, likened Blagojevich’s fiscal style to paying grocery bills with a credit card.
Martire supports an income tax hike to better fund education and other needs.
“The honest answer is if you’re going to enhance public spending, you need recurring revenue to fund it,” Martire said.
“And if you’re relying on gimmicks or tricks or borrowing or raiding other funds, every year you create a bigger and bigger deficit position. That’s something other than responsible because it’s borrowing against future generations to maintain current spending levels.”
The state hiked the personal income tax from 2.5 percent to 3 percent in 1989, according to the state Department of Revenue. The corporate income tax increased from 4 percent to 4.8 percent at the same time.
The state sales tax has been 6.25 percent since 1990.
Blagojevich’s latest plan to generate cash is selling or leasing the state lottery. Skeptics say that would simply postpone an inevitable tax increase, but Blagojevich budget director John Filan disputes that.
Staff writer Aaron Chambers may be reached at 217-782-2959 or achambers@rrstar.com.
In the story above
Rising gas prices have pumped millions into state budget
[published on Fri, Jul 7, 2006]
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – Rising gasoline prices and the extra tax money they produce have pumped an additional $137 million into the state budget over the past year, analysts say.
To view the rest of the story go to Northwest Herald.
In the first story below Martire made two good statements:
"The honest answer is if you're going to enhance public spending, you need recurring revenue to fund it," Martire said.
"And if you're relying on gimmicks or tricks or borrowing or raiding other funds, every year you create a bigger and bigger deficit position. That's something other than responsible because it's borrowing against future generations to maintain current spending levels."
But the solution is to NOT "enhance public spending" and to NOT "maintain current spending levels". Even his own words show that the real problem is spending, not funding.
After more than 15 years, is a state tax increase inevitable?
By Aaron Chambers
REGISTER STAR SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
Click here for more information about Aaron Chambers
SPRINGFIELD — The state hasn’t hiked tax rates in more than 15 years.
Will Illinois soon hit you with a tax increase? And, as some observers suggest, would a tax hike be more responsible than the state’s nickel-and-dime approach to generating more cash to spend?
“They come up with so many creative ideas, why don’t they just raise taxes and get by all these games and get a solid revenue stream to take care of our pensions and our debt and our schools?” said Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford.
He was referring to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and fellow Democrats in the Legislature who have shaped the state budget in recent years.
Syverson predicted the state would need to raise taxes to deal with its rapidly growing expenses.
He said a sales-tax increase wouldn’t be feasible because it would drive consumers to the Internet and surrounding states.
But he would consider supporting an income tax increase — perhaps a temporary one — as long as the state stopped diverting dollars from road construction funds and committed to using all new revenue to pay bills and debt.
“Unfortunately the problem can’t be fixed with a few small fee increases,” Syverson said. “It’s going to take a pretty substantial amount of new revenue, unfortunately, just to make up for what’s happened over the last three years.”
John Kenward, a senior analyst at rating agency Standard & Poors, said the state’s nickel-and-dime approach is not unusual.
“There’s not a lot of forward financial planning with the states,” he said. “It tends to be budget to budget, year to year.”
Kenward said it’s heroic for Illinois to keep a lid on taxes to stay competitive with surrounding states. But that at some point, it would need “an overall longer-term plan because the revenues aren’t growing as fast as the expenditures are.”
In April, Fitch Ratings gave Illinois a “negative outlook,” because it must start making dramatically larger payments to its pension systems. Public pension systems have $38.6 billion in unfunded liability, which is the difference between assets and the cost of retirement benefits for everybody covered by the system.
Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a fiscal policy think tank, likened Blagojevich’s fiscal style to paying grocery bills with a credit card.
Martire supports an income tax hike to better fund education and other needs.
“The honest answer is if you’re going to enhance public spending, you need recurring revenue to fund it,” Martire said.
“And if you’re relying on gimmicks or tricks or borrowing or raiding other funds, every year you create a bigger and bigger deficit position. That’s something other than responsible because it’s borrowing against future generations to maintain current spending levels.”
The state hiked the personal income tax from 2.5 percent to 3 percent in 1989, according to the state Department of Revenue. The corporate income tax increased from 4 percent to 4.8 percent at the same time.
The state sales tax has been 6.25 percent since 1990.
Blagojevich’s latest plan to generate cash is selling or leasing the state lottery. Skeptics say that would simply postpone an inevitable tax increase, but Blagojevich budget director John Filan disputes that.
Staff writer Aaron Chambers may be reached at 217-782-2959 or achambers@rrstar.com.
In the story above
Rising gas prices have pumped millions into state budget
[published on Fri, Jul 7, 2006]
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – Rising gasoline prices and the extra tax money they produce have pumped an additional $137 million into the state budget over the past year, analysts say.
To view the rest of the story go to Northwest Herald.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Taxes forced me out
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Northwest Herald.
Taxes forced me out
To the Editor:
A letter of thanks to the tax hikers of Kane County and District 300.
Thank you, Dundee Township assessor, for hiking my assessment for more than was needed.
Thank you, Village of Algonquin, for not keeping the tax rate lower for homeowners, even with the new developments on Randall Road.
Thank you, District 300, for running such a dirty campaign to engage my kindergartner to try to get a "yes" vote out of her parents. (By the way, I voted no.)
Thank you, Kane County, for making my taxes so high that I put my house up for sale.
Thanks for making me have to explain to my children why we needed to move away from their friends.
Thank you for making me see that moving to Indiana was a good choice and a better education for my children.
Thank you for showing that no matter what, the corrupt, twisted ways of taxes and electioneering in Illinois never will change.
Roger Case
Valparaiso, Ind.
Taxes forced me out
To the Editor:
A letter of thanks to the tax hikers of Kane County and District 300.
Thank you, Dundee Township assessor, for hiking my assessment for more than was needed.
Thank you, Village of Algonquin, for not keeping the tax rate lower for homeowners, even with the new developments on Randall Road.
Thank you, District 300, for running such a dirty campaign to engage my kindergartner to try to get a "yes" vote out of her parents. (By the way, I voted no.)
Thank you, Kane County, for making my taxes so high that I put my house up for sale.
Thanks for making me have to explain to my children why we needed to move away from their friends.
Thank you for making me see that moving to Indiana was a good choice and a better education for my children.
Thank you for showing that no matter what, the corrupt, twisted ways of taxes and electioneering in Illinois never will change.
Roger Case
Valparaiso, Ind.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
District 99 Tax Referendum Rejection Arguments
A group called Citizens for Responsible Solutions opposed to the District 99 referendum proposed the following reasons to reject the referendum. Their investigation and reasons are a good example for others to follow after they have decided to organize a group and oppose school referenda.
Reasons to vote no:
District 99 Tax Referendum Rejection Arguments
I.
Tax cap issue is a "red herring." Despite the tax cap, District 99 has already received very significant and repeated inflows of new dollars in recent years.
Due largely to property value appreciation and new construction, total revenues, after tax cap restrictions, grew from $44.2 million in fiscal 1994 to $67.7 million in fiscal 2003. That is an increase of over $22 million or an average annual revenue increase of 5.3% per year.
Additional funds from referendum/non-referendum bonds and state construction grant totaled $82.3 million.
The district's problem is not their after tax cap revenue levels, but rather their unwillingness to make budget adjustments as the economy goes through non-boom periods.
II.
District 99 has repeatedly demonstrated poor fiscal and administrative management in recent years.
Voters approved $49.5 million for construction and renovation. Cost overruns (700+ change orders) have brought cost, to date, to nearly $65 million with additional lawsuit expenses still coming. Final net impact of lawsuits is unknown.
District 99 borrowed $10.6 million they claim has generated income. In fact, the borrowing expense has exceeded the investment interest rate by several percentage points, costing the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative interest rate spread. They now hope to reduce, not solve, the problem by re-financing $42 million of higher cost bonds. This will cost several hundred thousand dollars to transact.
District 99 has failed to respond to calls to commit to a mandated balanced budget. Instead, it has adopted a budget where annual percentage increases for salaries and benefits exceed realistic percentage increases in revenues, resulting in continued deficit spending.
Budget problems have been compounded by practice of spiking salaries just prior to retirement, and refusing to expect administrators to contribute toward insurance costs.
Poor administrative relations with staff contributed to teacher strike that further polarized staff/administration relations.
District issued high cost taxable bonds instead of lower cost tax free bonds under pretense that money would go to cash reserves rather than be used for operations. Instead, over half that bond money has already been spent.
III.
District 99 has demonstrated poor priorities.
$3500 to $6500 pay increases were just approved in August for most administrators, but sufficient money for textbooks supposedly isn't available.
$2 million has been allocated to buy land at DGN for future parking and sports fields, but science labs, fine arts facility renovations, administrative office space and computer upgrades badly needed right now at DGS have not been funded.
Last spring District 99 spent nearly $25,000 sending 15 administrators and department heads to San Francisco for a four day conference, when sending only 2 or 3 individuals would have been much more appropriate considering district budget problems.
IV.
District 99 has not been candid with the community on many issues.
Claimed a "Balanced Budget" that clearly wasn't.
Indicated that referendum rate increase amount being considered was $.05 or $.10. In fact, it was readily changed to $.15, a 50% increase. Leadership was either disingenuous or out of touch with their fiscal needs.
Promised to abate back state construction grant money, but ceased doing so after only a couple years.
Didn't address construction/renovation needs at both schools as promised in last referendum.
Makes no mention of salary and benefit role in current fiscal problems even though that area represents at least 80% of their budget!
Finally, using per capita expenditure data in their election materials ignores the fact such data is largely a function of District size, not management efficiency.
V.
This proposed tax increase is excessive as well as potentially harmful to other taxing bodies.
Many families and individuals are currently under great financial stress due to unemployment, high medical costs, college costs, etc. $150 to $250 more in new taxes is simply unaffordable for these people and elderly on fixed income.
It is unfair to ask for a tax increase before telling citizens the fair value of the Woodridge property, and plans to either use it or sell it after forty years! "Citizen participation" means more than just asking for an endorsement. Their own survey shows citizen support of a Woodridge property sale by approx. a 2 to 1 margin.
There is still about $6 million available in reserve to cover the next two years of projected deficit, plus room to cut non-instructional expenditures such as the administrative budget.
Any true problems related to the tax cap are a statewide problem requiring a state solution, not a bailout by district taxpayers. Other non-school district taxing bodies seem able to live with the tax cap.
District 99 is already getting one third of our property tax bill. Tax dollars are not unlimited, and such a large tax increase would seriously jeopardize the growing fiscal needs of other taxing bodies such as District 58, College of DuPage, Villages of Woodridge and Downers Grove, DuPage County, etc.
Reasons to vote no:
District 99 Tax Referendum Rejection Arguments
I.
Tax cap issue is a "red herring." Despite the tax cap, District 99 has already received very significant and repeated inflows of new dollars in recent years.
Due largely to property value appreciation and new construction, total revenues, after tax cap restrictions, grew from $44.2 million in fiscal 1994 to $67.7 million in fiscal 2003. That is an increase of over $22 million or an average annual revenue increase of 5.3% per year.
Additional funds from referendum/non-referendum bonds and state construction grant totaled $82.3 million.
The district's problem is not their after tax cap revenue levels, but rather their unwillingness to make budget adjustments as the economy goes through non-boom periods.
II.
District 99 has repeatedly demonstrated poor fiscal and administrative management in recent years.
Voters approved $49.5 million for construction and renovation. Cost overruns (700+ change orders) have brought cost, to date, to nearly $65 million with additional lawsuit expenses still coming. Final net impact of lawsuits is unknown.
District 99 borrowed $10.6 million they claim has generated income. In fact, the borrowing expense has exceeded the investment interest rate by several percentage points, costing the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative interest rate spread. They now hope to reduce, not solve, the problem by re-financing $42 million of higher cost bonds. This will cost several hundred thousand dollars to transact.
District 99 has failed to respond to calls to commit to a mandated balanced budget. Instead, it has adopted a budget where annual percentage increases for salaries and benefits exceed realistic percentage increases in revenues, resulting in continued deficit spending.
Budget problems have been compounded by practice of spiking salaries just prior to retirement, and refusing to expect administrators to contribute toward insurance costs.
Poor administrative relations with staff contributed to teacher strike that further polarized staff/administration relations.
District issued high cost taxable bonds instead of lower cost tax free bonds under pretense that money would go to cash reserves rather than be used for operations. Instead, over half that bond money has already been spent.
III.
District 99 has demonstrated poor priorities.
$3500 to $6500 pay increases were just approved in August for most administrators, but sufficient money for textbooks supposedly isn't available.
$2 million has been allocated to buy land at DGN for future parking and sports fields, but science labs, fine arts facility renovations, administrative office space and computer upgrades badly needed right now at DGS have not been funded.
Last spring District 99 spent nearly $25,000 sending 15 administrators and department heads to San Francisco for a four day conference, when sending only 2 or 3 individuals would have been much more appropriate considering district budget problems.
IV.
District 99 has not been candid with the community on many issues.
Claimed a "Balanced Budget" that clearly wasn't.
Indicated that referendum rate increase amount being considered was $.05 or $.10. In fact, it was readily changed to $.15, a 50% increase. Leadership was either disingenuous or out of touch with their fiscal needs.
Promised to abate back state construction grant money, but ceased doing so after only a couple years.
Didn't address construction/renovation needs at both schools as promised in last referendum.
Makes no mention of salary and benefit role in current fiscal problems even though that area represents at least 80% of their budget!
Finally, using per capita expenditure data in their election materials ignores the fact such data is largely a function of District size, not management efficiency.
V.
This proposed tax increase is excessive as well as potentially harmful to other taxing bodies.
Many families and individuals are currently under great financial stress due to unemployment, high medical costs, college costs, etc. $150 to $250 more in new taxes is simply unaffordable for these people and elderly on fixed income.
It is unfair to ask for a tax increase before telling citizens the fair value of the Woodridge property, and plans to either use it or sell it after forty years! "Citizen participation" means more than just asking for an endorsement. Their own survey shows citizen support of a Woodridge property sale by approx. a 2 to 1 margin.
There is still about $6 million available in reserve to cover the next two years of projected deficit, plus room to cut non-instructional expenditures such as the administrative budget.
Any true problems related to the tax cap are a statewide problem requiring a state solution, not a bailout by district taxpayers. Other non-school district taxing bodies seem able to live with the tax cap.
District 99 is already getting one third of our property tax bill. Tax dollars are not unlimited, and such a large tax increase would seriously jeopardize the growing fiscal needs of other taxing bodies such as District 58, College of DuPage, Villages of Woodridge and Downers Grove, DuPage County, etc.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School Takes Time Off to Go To Prison
The following article appeared in the NY Times.
This is our favorite section in the story below....""Michael Herman, the teachers' union chapter leader, said Mr. Everett was an excellent teacher who should be welcomed back to his job teaching law classes.
"It was an unfortunate isolated incident that got blown out of proportion," Mr. Herman said. "He wanted to make a difference in kids' lives, and he was doing that.""
That folks is one of the many problems of the teachers' unions.
June 7, 2006
Time Off? No Problem. But for Jail? Problem.
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
For years, the New York City school system has encouraged people to leave lucrative professions behind to work as teachers. But a disbarred lawyer convicted of theft may not have been what officials had in mind.
Investigators said yesterday that when the disbarred New Jersey lawyer, Thomas Everett, applied for a leave of absence from his job teaching at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, he wrote that he had to take care of "problems with the state of New Jersey judicial system." In fact, they said, Mr. Everett needed the time off to go to jail.
In a report, Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools, wrote that Mr. Everett, 59, was
disbarred in 2001 while being investigated by the Essex County prosecutor's office. In 2003, Mr. Everett started teaching at
Sheepshead Bay.
But his past followed him. In May 2005, New Jersey officials finished their investigation, and Mr. Everett was arrested and charged with stealing more than $1 million while serving as the executor of two elderly women's estates.
In October, investigators said, Mr. Everett pleaded guilty to theft and misappropriation and was sentenced in January to a maximum of three years in prison, at which point he applied for the leave. After serving four months, Mr. Everett was released from jail on May 22 and placed in a supervised release program, forbidding him to leave New Jersey. According to the report, he owes $1.4 million in restitution to the families.
The Department of Education issued a statement yesterday saying it would move to fire Mr. Everett. That is what Mr. Condon recommended — not because of the conviction, but because Mr. Everett had not reported the conviction to the department's Office of Personnel Investigations, although he did tell his principal.
Nonetheless, Mr. Condon said Mr. Everett may have been done in by his own honesty, by offering an accurate if vague reason for requesting the leave.
"If he had come up with a good reason, even if it wasn't true, but one that passed the smell test, he probably would have been home free," Mr. Condon said.
Mr. Everett did not return a telephone call yesterday seeking comment. But according to the report, he said that heirs of his
clients, whom he described as "two little old ladies in nursing homes," had questioned his actions in handling the estates. He told investigators that he simply failed to keep good records of his billable hours.
Michael Herman, the teachers' union chapter leader, said Mr. Everett was an excellent teacher who should be welcomed back to his job teaching law classes.
"It was an unfortunate isolated incident that got blown out of proportion," Mr. Herman said. "He wanted to make a difference in kids' lives, and he was doing that."
This is our favorite section in the story below....""Michael Herman, the teachers' union chapter leader, said Mr. Everett was an excellent teacher who should be welcomed back to his job teaching law classes.
"It was an unfortunate isolated incident that got blown out of proportion," Mr. Herman said. "He wanted to make a difference in kids' lives, and he was doing that.""
That folks is one of the many problems of the teachers' unions.
June 7, 2006
Time Off? No Problem. But for Jail? Problem.
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
For years, the New York City school system has encouraged people to leave lucrative professions behind to work as teachers. But a disbarred lawyer convicted of theft may not have been what officials had in mind.
Investigators said yesterday that when the disbarred New Jersey lawyer, Thomas Everett, applied for a leave of absence from his job teaching at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, he wrote that he had to take care of "problems with the state of New Jersey judicial system." In fact, they said, Mr. Everett needed the time off to go to jail.
In a report, Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools, wrote that Mr. Everett, 59, was
disbarred in 2001 while being investigated by the Essex County prosecutor's office. In 2003, Mr. Everett started teaching at
Sheepshead Bay.
But his past followed him. In May 2005, New Jersey officials finished their investigation, and Mr. Everett was arrested and charged with stealing more than $1 million while serving as the executor of two elderly women's estates.
In October, investigators said, Mr. Everett pleaded guilty to theft and misappropriation and was sentenced in January to a maximum of three years in prison, at which point he applied for the leave. After serving four months, Mr. Everett was released from jail on May 22 and placed in a supervised release program, forbidding him to leave New Jersey. According to the report, he owes $1.4 million in restitution to the families.
The Department of Education issued a statement yesterday saying it would move to fire Mr. Everett. That is what Mr. Condon recommended — not because of the conviction, but because Mr. Everett had not reported the conviction to the department's Office of Personnel Investigations, although he did tell his principal.
Nonetheless, Mr. Condon said Mr. Everett may have been done in by his own honesty, by offering an accurate if vague reason for requesting the leave.
"If he had come up with a good reason, even if it wasn't true, but one that passed the smell test, he probably would have been home free," Mr. Condon said.
Mr. Everett did not return a telephone call yesterday seeking comment. But according to the report, he said that heirs of his
clients, whom he described as "two little old ladies in nursing homes," had questioned his actions in handling the estates. He told investigators that he simply failed to keep good records of his billable hours.
Michael Herman, the teachers' union chapter leader, said Mr. Everett was an excellent teacher who should be welcomed back to his job teaching law classes.
"It was an unfortunate isolated incident that got blown out of proportion," Mr. Herman said. "He wanted to make a difference in kids' lives, and he was doing that."
Monday, July 03, 2006
PMA Financial Network suggests referendum but has history of funding referenda.
The following story appeared in the Daily Herald. For the most part the Daily Herald does an outstanding job reporting on education issues. If you are not a subscriber you should subscribe.
PMA has yet to say a school does not need money. This company often holds lucrative contracts with schools. If the schools get more money than PMA financial gets more money.
The most important section in the report below is as follow.... "PMA Financial Network works with school districts across the Chicago area. The company’s financial projections have not been well-received at all suburban schools.
Cary Elementary District 26 board members last year questioned the accuracy of a PMA report that predicted sharply declining fund balances. PMA’s poor financial outlook was used to help push an unsuccessful 2004 tax-hike referendum, which some District 26 officials at the time opposed and said was an unnecessary effort.
Based on PMA’s forecast, District 26 materials stated it would be out of money in 2005 unless revenue jumped or cuts were made. Instead the district ended with $7.92 million in its coffers when the 2004-05 academic year ended.
PMA has contributed money to groups promoting “yes” votes on school tax-increase efforts. State Board of Elections records show PMA has provided $13,750 to tax-hike proponents since 2003."
Report: Warren must make cuts or raise tax funds
By Bob Susnjara
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Warren Township High School in Gurnee can free up about $3 million to balance its budget by considering program cuts or a tax increase, according to a financial consultant’s report.
Donald Weber, vice president of sales and marketing for PMA Financial Network Inc. in Warrenville, made a presentation to Warren District 121 board members Tuesday night. PMA has been assisting Warren in long-range financial planning.
“You’ve got some rough waters you’re going to be approaching in the very near future,” Weber told Distrct 121 board members, “and we projected that two years ago.”
Possible programs Warren can elect to cut include:
• Eliminating all athletics and co-curricular programs, saving $1.7 million.
• Losing 30 staff members to save $2.3 million.
• Dropping non-mandatory classes, such as foreign language, saving $1.4 million.
• Cutting eighth period to save $700,000.
District 121 can also seek to boost its revenue by placing a tax-increase referendum on the ballot, stated the PMA report. The report says Warren’s deficit spending is reducing working-cash fund balance reserves.
Weber said Warren’s financial woes are tied to a lack of revenue rather than spending too much money. He said District 121 needs more revenue, fewer expenditures or a combination of both.
PMA Financial Network works with school districts across the Chicago area. The company’s financial projections have not been well-received at all suburban schools.
Cary Elementary District 26 board members last year questioned the accuracy of a PMA report that predicted sharply declining fund balances. PMA’s poor financial outlook was used to help push an unsuccessful 2004 tax-hike referendum, which some District 26 officials at the time opposed and said was an unnecessary effort.
Based on PMA’s forecast, District 26 materials stated it would be out of money in 2005 unless revenue jumped or cuts were made. Instead the district ended with $7.92 million in its coffers when the 2004-05 academic year ended.
PMA has contributed money to groups promoting “yes” votes on school tax-increase efforts. State Board of Elections records show PMA has provided $13,750 to tax-hike proponents since 2003.
PMA has yet to say a school does not need money. This company often holds lucrative contracts with schools. If the schools get more money than PMA financial gets more money.
The most important section in the report below is as follow.... "PMA Financial Network works with school districts across the Chicago area. The company’s financial projections have not been well-received at all suburban schools.
Cary Elementary District 26 board members last year questioned the accuracy of a PMA report that predicted sharply declining fund balances. PMA’s poor financial outlook was used to help push an unsuccessful 2004 tax-hike referendum, which some District 26 officials at the time opposed and said was an unnecessary effort.
Based on PMA’s forecast, District 26 materials stated it would be out of money in 2005 unless revenue jumped or cuts were made. Instead the district ended with $7.92 million in its coffers when the 2004-05 academic year ended.
PMA has contributed money to groups promoting “yes” votes on school tax-increase efforts. State Board of Elections records show PMA has provided $13,750 to tax-hike proponents since 2003."
Report: Warren must make cuts or raise tax funds
By Bob Susnjara
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Warren Township High School in Gurnee can free up about $3 million to balance its budget by considering program cuts or a tax increase, according to a financial consultant’s report.
Donald Weber, vice president of sales and marketing for PMA Financial Network Inc. in Warrenville, made a presentation to Warren District 121 board members Tuesday night. PMA has been assisting Warren in long-range financial planning.
“You’ve got some rough waters you’re going to be approaching in the very near future,” Weber told Distrct 121 board members, “and we projected that two years ago.”
Possible programs Warren can elect to cut include:
• Eliminating all athletics and co-curricular programs, saving $1.7 million.
• Losing 30 staff members to save $2.3 million.
• Dropping non-mandatory classes, such as foreign language, saving $1.4 million.
• Cutting eighth period to save $700,000.
District 121 can also seek to boost its revenue by placing a tax-increase referendum on the ballot, stated the PMA report. The report says Warren’s deficit spending is reducing working-cash fund balance reserves.
Weber said Warren’s financial woes are tied to a lack of revenue rather than spending too much money. He said District 121 needs more revenue, fewer expenditures or a combination of both.
PMA Financial Network works with school districts across the Chicago area. The company’s financial projections have not been well-received at all suburban schools.
Cary Elementary District 26 board members last year questioned the accuracy of a PMA report that predicted sharply declining fund balances. PMA’s poor financial outlook was used to help push an unsuccessful 2004 tax-hike referendum, which some District 26 officials at the time opposed and said was an unnecessary effort.
Based on PMA’s forecast, District 26 materials stated it would be out of money in 2005 unless revenue jumped or cuts were made. Instead the district ended with $7.92 million in its coffers when the 2004-05 academic year ended.
PMA has contributed money to groups promoting “yes” votes on school tax-increase efforts. State Board of Elections records show PMA has provided $13,750 to tax-hike proponents since 2003.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Corruption in Public Schools Costs Taxpayers, Impedes Reform
The referendum parade will begin shortly. Money grubbers are calculating their next move at this time. Be prepared become informed before you vote. The article below is an oldie but a goodie and appears on the Heartland Institute's website. While at the site you should sign up to receive a subscription to School Reform News.
Corruption in Public Schools Costs Taxpayers, Impedes Reform
In Roslyn, education dollars spent on Lexus, limos, and luxury
Written By: Lisa Snell
Published In: School Reform News
Publication Date: September 1, 2004
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
Ongoing news reports from across the country indicate incidents of corruption and mismanagement in the public schools occur frequently, often on a massive scale. Ignoring the scale of the problem not only costs taxpayers millions of dollars but also hinders school reform efforts, according to New York University law professor Lydia G. Segal.
In her recent book, Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools (Northwestern University Press, 2003), Segal argues, "one impediment to reform that no one is seriously studying in the debate over how to improve public schools is systematic fraud, waste, and abuse." Her careful documentation of the pervasive corruption and waste in the nation's three largest school districts--New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles--leaves little doubt the problem merits serious study.
However, fraud, waste, and abuse are not limited to large urban school districts, as the following recent examples demonstrate.
$8 Million in Undocumented Expenses
In New York's affluent Roslyn School District on Long Island, former school superintendent Frank A. Tassone and senior administrator Pamela C. Gluckin were each charged recently with stealing more than $1 million from the district. Gluckin allegedly used the funds to finance four homes, a Lexus, and other luxury items. Tassone allegedly used his $1 million for airline travel, cruises, dermatology treatments, furniture, and jewelry, and to give his roommate's company more than $800,000 in no-bid contracts. Both Tassone and Gluckin pleaded not guilty.
The Roslyn school board is still reviewing more than $8 million in undocumented expenses. According to the New York Times, those expenses include:
• $736,000 paid to an Oklahoma publishing company that has no record of doing business with the district;
• $600,000+ spent in delicatessens and specialty food stores;
• $100,000+ spent on limousines and car services;
• $50,000 paid to restaurants;
• $21,000 charged for a BMW lease or purchase;
• $3,800 spent to reserve space with Manhattan Mini-Storage, a long way from Roslyn;
• $1,485 spent for an Equinox gym membership.
Gluckin previously worked for Long Island's William Floyd District under former treasurer James Wright, according to Suffolk Life. In June, Wright was charged with stealing more than $750,000 from the William Floyd District simply by writing checks to himself.
$15.9 Million in Kickbacks
In Fort Worth, Texas, a school construction scandal ended in June with the former executive director of maintenance for the Fort Worth School District, Tommy Ingram, and contractor Ray Brooks being sentenced to eight years in prison each for a kickback scheme in which they defrauded the school district of an estimated $15.9 million.
Payroll Scam
In July, eight employees of the New Orleans school system pleaded guilty to stealing more than $70,000 in a scheme in which payroll clerk Louis Serrano wrote fraudulent checks to seven other employees in exchange for half of the face value of the checks. A ninth employee, payroll clerk Terri Smith Morant, admitted stealing $250,000 by printing checks to herself using her maiden name.
According to a recent report by the state legislative auditor of Louisiana, school system employees have cashed an estimated $3 million in paychecks that administrators sent out either in error or with criminal intent.
Fighting corruption in the school system is like "eating an elephant," New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass told The Times-Picayune. "We just took the first bite."
Mismanagement
In addition to losses from outright fraud, taxpayers also have lost millions due to mismanagement and incompetence.
For instance, in a June 2004 audit of California's Oakland Unified School District, state auditors could not determine if in 2002-03 the district had appropriately spent millions of dollars and properly complied with scores of state and federal mandates. As a result, the district could be forced to repay $163 million to the state and federal governments. In addition, district bonds worth $322 million are in jeopardy of losing their tax-exempt status because the funds have been inappropriately spent on general education rather than on specific projects.
According to the audit's findings, the district's shortcomings included:
• Failing to hold competitive bidding for $18.4 million in contracts;
• Inappropriately using $650,000 in bond funds to pay a lawsuit settlement;
• Issuing payroll checks to employees when they no longer worked for the district;
• Failing to maintain attendance records at some schools and overreporting attendance at others;
• Inappropriately carrying over unused funds for federal projects from one year to the next.
Also in June in southern California, the Los Angeles School Board continued the saga of the most expensive high school ever built by voting to do further work on the Belmont Learning Complex. When completed, Belmont will have cost about $270 million--$175 million of which has already been spent to produce a school that currently is unusable.
In June in south Florida, auditors delivered 650 pages of backup documents to support the findings of an April 2004 forensic audit that charged the Miami-Dade school district with wasting more than $100 million in its school facilities program. The audit alleged there was massive disorganization and waste in the program as well as "probable malfeasance, misfeasance, and potential for fraud."
Exploiting a Loophole
Unethical behavior and taxpayer abuse by school employees is not always illegal. In June, thousands of teachers in Texas rushed to retire before a lucrative loophole in Social Security law closed. Although most Texas teachers participate in a state pension fund rather than paying into Social Security, the loophole allowed them to receive Social Security benefits if their last day of work before retirement was in a job covered by Social Security.
In 2002, one-fourth of all public school retirees in Texas--3,521 people--took advantage of the loophole, according to auditors. Congress moved to close the loophole in spring 2004 when auditors estimated leaving it open could cost the Social Security system $450 million.
School districts around the state helped retiring teachers meet the one-day requirement by hiring them to work janitorial or maintenance jobs on their last day of work. Teachers paid the districts a small fee for this privilege, generating substantial revenues for some districts. For example, the Lindale Independent School District made about $700,000 helping teachers beat the deadline, according to assistant superintendent for business Mike McSwain.
"We just couldn't look at our taxpayers and say we passed up this opportunity to get this kind of revenue into the district," McSwain told the Associated Press.
Lisa Snell (lsnell@reason.org) is director of the education program for the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles.
Corruption in Public Schools Costs Taxpayers, Impedes Reform
In Roslyn, education dollars spent on Lexus, limos, and luxury
Written By: Lisa Snell
Published In: School Reform News
Publication Date: September 1, 2004
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
Ongoing news reports from across the country indicate incidents of corruption and mismanagement in the public schools occur frequently, often on a massive scale. Ignoring the scale of the problem not only costs taxpayers millions of dollars but also hinders school reform efforts, according to New York University law professor Lydia G. Segal.
In her recent book, Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools (Northwestern University Press, 2003), Segal argues, "one impediment to reform that no one is seriously studying in the debate over how to improve public schools is systematic fraud, waste, and abuse." Her careful documentation of the pervasive corruption and waste in the nation's three largest school districts--New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles--leaves little doubt the problem merits serious study.
However, fraud, waste, and abuse are not limited to large urban school districts, as the following recent examples demonstrate.
$8 Million in Undocumented Expenses
In New York's affluent Roslyn School District on Long Island, former school superintendent Frank A. Tassone and senior administrator Pamela C. Gluckin were each charged recently with stealing more than $1 million from the district. Gluckin allegedly used the funds to finance four homes, a Lexus, and other luxury items. Tassone allegedly used his $1 million for airline travel, cruises, dermatology treatments, furniture, and jewelry, and to give his roommate's company more than $800,000 in no-bid contracts. Both Tassone and Gluckin pleaded not guilty.
The Roslyn school board is still reviewing more than $8 million in undocumented expenses. According to the New York Times, those expenses include:
• $736,000 paid to an Oklahoma publishing company that has no record of doing business with the district;
• $600,000+ spent in delicatessens and specialty food stores;
• $100,000+ spent on limousines and car services;
• $50,000 paid to restaurants;
• $21,000 charged for a BMW lease or purchase;
• $3,800 spent to reserve space with Manhattan Mini-Storage, a long way from Roslyn;
• $1,485 spent for an Equinox gym membership.
Gluckin previously worked for Long Island's William Floyd District under former treasurer James Wright, according to Suffolk Life. In June, Wright was charged with stealing more than $750,000 from the William Floyd District simply by writing checks to himself.
$15.9 Million in Kickbacks
In Fort Worth, Texas, a school construction scandal ended in June with the former executive director of maintenance for the Fort Worth School District, Tommy Ingram, and contractor Ray Brooks being sentenced to eight years in prison each for a kickback scheme in which they defrauded the school district of an estimated $15.9 million.
Payroll Scam
In July, eight employees of the New Orleans school system pleaded guilty to stealing more than $70,000 in a scheme in which payroll clerk Louis Serrano wrote fraudulent checks to seven other employees in exchange for half of the face value of the checks. A ninth employee, payroll clerk Terri Smith Morant, admitted stealing $250,000 by printing checks to herself using her maiden name.
According to a recent report by the state legislative auditor of Louisiana, school system employees have cashed an estimated $3 million in paychecks that administrators sent out either in error or with criminal intent.
Fighting corruption in the school system is like "eating an elephant," New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass told The Times-Picayune. "We just took the first bite."
Mismanagement
In addition to losses from outright fraud, taxpayers also have lost millions due to mismanagement and incompetence.
For instance, in a June 2004 audit of California's Oakland Unified School District, state auditors could not determine if in 2002-03 the district had appropriately spent millions of dollars and properly complied with scores of state and federal mandates. As a result, the district could be forced to repay $163 million to the state and federal governments. In addition, district bonds worth $322 million are in jeopardy of losing their tax-exempt status because the funds have been inappropriately spent on general education rather than on specific projects.
According to the audit's findings, the district's shortcomings included:
• Failing to hold competitive bidding for $18.4 million in contracts;
• Inappropriately using $650,000 in bond funds to pay a lawsuit settlement;
• Issuing payroll checks to employees when they no longer worked for the district;
• Failing to maintain attendance records at some schools and overreporting attendance at others;
• Inappropriately carrying over unused funds for federal projects from one year to the next.
Also in June in southern California, the Los Angeles School Board continued the saga of the most expensive high school ever built by voting to do further work on the Belmont Learning Complex. When completed, Belmont will have cost about $270 million--$175 million of which has already been spent to produce a school that currently is unusable.
In June in south Florida, auditors delivered 650 pages of backup documents to support the findings of an April 2004 forensic audit that charged the Miami-Dade school district with wasting more than $100 million in its school facilities program. The audit alleged there was massive disorganization and waste in the program as well as "probable malfeasance, misfeasance, and potential for fraud."
Exploiting a Loophole
Unethical behavior and taxpayer abuse by school employees is not always illegal. In June, thousands of teachers in Texas rushed to retire before a lucrative loophole in Social Security law closed. Although most Texas teachers participate in a state pension fund rather than paying into Social Security, the loophole allowed them to receive Social Security benefits if their last day of work before retirement was in a job covered by Social Security.
In 2002, one-fourth of all public school retirees in Texas--3,521 people--took advantage of the loophole, according to auditors. Congress moved to close the loophole in spring 2004 when auditors estimated leaving it open could cost the Social Security system $450 million.
School districts around the state helped retiring teachers meet the one-day requirement by hiring them to work janitorial or maintenance jobs on their last day of work. Teachers paid the districts a small fee for this privilege, generating substantial revenues for some districts. For example, the Lindale Independent School District made about $700,000 helping teachers beat the deadline, according to assistant superintendent for business Mike McSwain.
"We just couldn't look at our taxpayers and say we passed up this opportunity to get this kind of revenue into the district," McSwain told the Associated Press.
Lisa Snell (lsnell@reason.org) is director of the education program for the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Too much give and take
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Northwest Herald. Mr. Quinn makes an excellent point. Many people spend so much of their money paying taxes they do not have money to give to other causes. He also makes an excellent point about personal responsibility. If more individuals would take personal responsibility instead of having the government take care of them we would not have to pay so many taxes. Remember these taxing bodies live off of your blood, sweat and tears. More often than not government employees have better schedules, pay, benefits and pensions than the average taxpayer. Because of their money and time off they have the time to lobby legislators for even more of your money. The two teachers unions are the primary and tertiary donors to legislators.
If you want to pay less taxes you can give their time to groups that fight taxes. You can also spend time writing to the legislators and encouraging friends and neighbors to write to legislators to stop the educational spending race.
Too much give and take
[published on Sat, Jul 1, 2006]
To the Editor:
Re: The June 27 editorial, "Giving hits miserly low."
I'm sorry if my giving to charities appears to have slacked off. But, I'm busy giving to the federal government. I'm busy giving to the state government. I'm busy giving to the county.
I'm busy giving to the township.
I'm busy giving to two school districts. I'm busy giving to the park district. I'm busy giving to the conservation district. I'm busy giving to the city of McHenry.
I'm busy giving to the secretary of state.
I'm busy giving to the oil companies. I'm just busy giving to lots of places with their hands out, crying, "Gimme, gimme."
I'm so busy giving to all of them, that I don't give to the tobacco or alcohol industries.
I don't give to the Lotto.
I don't give to fast-food restaurants.
I almost never give to the entertainment industry; no movies in quite awhile now.
Sorry, charities, but it became inevitable that something had to give.
And with all those hands out, maybe I just didn't see you fighting for your place in the crowd.
Also, I'm doing my best to avoid taking.
And I hope that I never will, so that others don't have to give.
Dave Quinn
McHenry
If you want to pay less taxes you can give their time to groups that fight taxes. You can also spend time writing to the legislators and encouraging friends and neighbors to write to legislators to stop the educational spending race.
Too much give and take
[published on Sat, Jul 1, 2006]
To the Editor:
Re: The June 27 editorial, "Giving hits miserly low."
I'm sorry if my giving to charities appears to have slacked off. But, I'm busy giving to the federal government. I'm busy giving to the state government. I'm busy giving to the county.
I'm busy giving to the township.
I'm busy giving to two school districts. I'm busy giving to the park district. I'm busy giving to the conservation district. I'm busy giving to the city of McHenry.
I'm busy giving to the secretary of state.
I'm busy giving to the oil companies. I'm just busy giving to lots of places with their hands out, crying, "Gimme, gimme."
I'm so busy giving to all of them, that I don't give to the tobacco or alcohol industries.
I don't give to the Lotto.
I don't give to fast-food restaurants.
I almost never give to the entertainment industry; no movies in quite awhile now.
Sorry, charities, but it became inevitable that something had to give.
And with all those hands out, maybe I just didn't see you fighting for your place in the crowd.
Also, I'm doing my best to avoid taking.
And I hope that I never will, so that others don't have to give.
Dave Quinn
McHenry
Friday, June 30, 2006
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
The following partial piece below was posted on the Mackinac Center for Public Policy website. You will have to click the link at the end of the post to view the rest of the article.
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
Mr. Ryan S. Olson
Posted: Jun. 5, 2006
A proposal likely to appear on the November ballot would change Michigan law to mandate annual inflationary education expenditures. But the results of government education spending over the last several decades have shown little that would lead us to think simply spending more would improve schools. In large part, this is because schools generally operate without significant institutional incentives for producing improved results.
Source: Digest of Education Statistics 2004, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
Consider this: In what service sector have inputs more than doubled over three decades, while outputs have remained stagnant? If you answered, "Public education," go to the head of the class.
In both Michigan and the nation at large, the amount spent per student in public education has more than doubled since 1970, even after inflation is factored out. Compare that doubling of expenditure to students’ performance on the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress. The most recent average reading and mathematics scores on that test are virtually identical to the scores in the early 1970s.
Our educational institutions usually do not create incentives for instructional improvement by rewarding effective teachers and sanctioning ineffective ones.
To view the rest of the article go to Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Double-but-Nothing: More Education Spending Hasn't Yielded Better Results
Mr. Ryan S. Olson
Posted: Jun. 5, 2006
A proposal likely to appear on the November ballot would change Michigan law to mandate annual inflationary education expenditures. But the results of government education spending over the last several decades have shown little that would lead us to think simply spending more would improve schools. In large part, this is because schools generally operate without significant institutional incentives for producing improved results.
Source: Digest of Education Statistics 2004, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
Consider this: In what service sector have inputs more than doubled over three decades, while outputs have remained stagnant? If you answered, "Public education," go to the head of the class.
In both Michigan and the nation at large, the amount spent per student in public education has more than doubled since 1970, even after inflation is factored out. Compare that doubling of expenditure to students’ performance on the federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress. The most recent average reading and mathematics scores on that test are virtually identical to the scores in the early 1970s.
Our educational institutions usually do not create incentives for instructional improvement by rewarding effective teachers and sanctioning ineffective ones.
To view the rest of the article go to Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
The following piece appeared in the State Journal Register and on Students First. For more information on Collin Hitt and the Illinois Policy Institute click here.
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
6/29/2006
By Collin Hitt
State Journal Register
Rural schools outperform urban schools, on average. Their students read better, and perform better in math. Like small towns, rural schools are safer. But like small towns, once they fall into decline, they founder hopelessly.
For those schools, reform has been slow in coming in Illinois. Students and parents have felt the effects.
There are those contented to relegate school reform solely to a matter of monetary relief, whereby meaningful reforms have been supplanted by strategies of how to better angle for state resources. Schools are made to jockey for the same funds. Through this process, reform comes at the expense of other reforms, and it is failing rural Illinois.
Even in the districts where policy-makers have been particularly adept at bringing home education dollars, few positive results have followed. Pumping money into a struggling school is tantamount to subsidizing a failing factory. As relief it is temporary. As reform it is nominal. Choice-based reforms offer an alternative.
The word "voucher" is anathema to Illinois policy-makers. Utter the word and special interests will run you out of office faster than a quarter of rural eighth-graders can read a fourth-grade textbook. But vouchers or grants or "opportunity scholarships" - call them what you will - are needed everywhere, and immediately.
Most educators rail against the idea - "it would spell the end of our public school system." The fact is, educational grants have never spelled the end of public education, nor will they. Once parents are given the capability to genuinely direct their children's education, once schools are made to compete for their students, the public school system will respond to their needs.
Common to school choice opponents is the fear that, if given the opportunity, parents will send their children to private, parochial schools. Where possible, however, families are more frequently opting for charter schools - schools each somewhat unique in their approach, together offering a diverse array of programs.
Without the need to comply with rigid, statewide regulations, charter schools are able to focus their energies on an approach that is perhaps unique to their campus. They supply an education that responds to a local demand - a demand that may itself be unique to a given area; a demand that, due to statewide mandates, public schools are unable to meet.
Far from undermining local schools, "rural charter schools are providing an option to school consolidation by giving parents and educators the opportunity to keep their local school open," claims a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
Still, there are those who are wary of charter schools, and rightfully so. Gains in flexibility and responsiveness are made at the expense of oversight and accountability. In response to such concerns, one charter principal wrote, "charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new ... To discuss their effectiveness as a group means about as much as trying to evaluate whether restaurants, as a group, are good. Some are wonderful, some dreadful, some have shut down and some probably ought to."
The strengths of rural communities are tailor-made for a charter approach. The willingness and propensity of rural Illinoisans to time and again involve themselves in endeavors where they can make a difference is undeniable, and charter schools give them the opportunity to do just that.
Furthermore, rural educators - educators everywhere - must embrace distance learning programs. Online learning and "virtual schools" are revolutionizing education. They allow schools to provide an education otherwise unavailable, due often to faculty limitations.
"Virtual schooling," when provided, has proven especially effective amongst students who take online advanced placement and college preparatory courses. There is a dearth of such options currently available in rural classrooms. And it's not that rural schools cannot take advantage of existing distance learning options; it's that they do not take advantage of these options. They're an inexpensive way to diversify and improve offerings within a given school.
However, teachers would be made to compete with online offerings, which makes districts unlikely candidates to initiate distance learning approaches. Florida established a statewide virtual school, and so should Illinois. In Florida, rural parents have enrolled their children in droves, part time and full time. To the extent that online education was being used to supplant classroom education, schools and school districts received less money. In response, dozens of Florida school districts have since established district-based virtual schools, to compete with the statewide school, and parents now have a wider array of high-quality options.
Rural schools, when faced to compete for students, will respond to the demands voiced by parents who chose to send their children elsewhere. Attempting to recapture dollars lost will force those public schools to raise the bar. And when they do, all students will benefit.
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: As a legislative priority, rural education in Illinois ranks 43rd in the country. Yet, as we have seen, there exist choice-based reforms that can bring positive results to thousands of underserved Illinoisans … now. Each can be enacted immediately. Each can be enacted independently. Each deserves support within the General Assembly. And each would leave families and students far better served than under the failing status quo.
Collin Hitt is director of education policy and reform at the Springfield-based Illinois Policy Institute. He can be reached at collin@illinoispolicyinstitute.org.
Choice-based reforms can help rural schools thrive
6/29/2006
By Collin Hitt
State Journal Register
Rural schools outperform urban schools, on average. Their students read better, and perform better in math. Like small towns, rural schools are safer. But like small towns, once they fall into decline, they founder hopelessly.
For those schools, reform has been slow in coming in Illinois. Students and parents have felt the effects.
There are those contented to relegate school reform solely to a matter of monetary relief, whereby meaningful reforms have been supplanted by strategies of how to better angle for state resources. Schools are made to jockey for the same funds. Through this process, reform comes at the expense of other reforms, and it is failing rural Illinois.
Even in the districts where policy-makers have been particularly adept at bringing home education dollars, few positive results have followed. Pumping money into a struggling school is tantamount to subsidizing a failing factory. As relief it is temporary. As reform it is nominal. Choice-based reforms offer an alternative.
The word "voucher" is anathema to Illinois policy-makers. Utter the word and special interests will run you out of office faster than a quarter of rural eighth-graders can read a fourth-grade textbook. But vouchers or grants or "opportunity scholarships" - call them what you will - are needed everywhere, and immediately.
Most educators rail against the idea - "it would spell the end of our public school system." The fact is, educational grants have never spelled the end of public education, nor will they. Once parents are given the capability to genuinely direct their children's education, once schools are made to compete for their students, the public school system will respond to their needs.
Common to school choice opponents is the fear that, if given the opportunity, parents will send their children to private, parochial schools. Where possible, however, families are more frequently opting for charter schools - schools each somewhat unique in their approach, together offering a diverse array of programs.
Without the need to comply with rigid, statewide regulations, charter schools are able to focus their energies on an approach that is perhaps unique to their campus. They supply an education that responds to a local demand - a demand that may itself be unique to a given area; a demand that, due to statewide mandates, public schools are unable to meet.
Far from undermining local schools, "rural charter schools are providing an option to school consolidation by giving parents and educators the opportunity to keep their local school open," claims a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.
Still, there are those who are wary of charter schools, and rightfully so. Gains in flexibility and responsiveness are made at the expense of oversight and accountability. In response to such concerns, one charter principal wrote, "charters are not in themselves a reform strategy; they are a blank slate. They are simply an opportunity to try something new ... To discuss their effectiveness as a group means about as much as trying to evaluate whether restaurants, as a group, are good. Some are wonderful, some dreadful, some have shut down and some probably ought to."
The strengths of rural communities are tailor-made for a charter approach. The willingness and propensity of rural Illinoisans to time and again involve themselves in endeavors where they can make a difference is undeniable, and charter schools give them the opportunity to do just that.
Furthermore, rural educators - educators everywhere - must embrace distance learning programs. Online learning and "virtual schools" are revolutionizing education. They allow schools to provide an education otherwise unavailable, due often to faculty limitations.
"Virtual schooling," when provided, has proven especially effective amongst students who take online advanced placement and college preparatory courses. There is a dearth of such options currently available in rural classrooms. And it's not that rural schools cannot take advantage of existing distance learning options; it's that they do not take advantage of these options. They're an inexpensive way to diversify and improve offerings within a given school.
However, teachers would be made to compete with online offerings, which makes districts unlikely candidates to initiate distance learning approaches. Florida established a statewide virtual school, and so should Illinois. In Florida, rural parents have enrolled their children in droves, part time and full time. To the extent that online education was being used to supplant classroom education, schools and school districts received less money. In response, dozens of Florida school districts have since established district-based virtual schools, to compete with the statewide school, and parents now have a wider array of high-quality options.
Rural schools, when faced to compete for students, will respond to the demands voiced by parents who chose to send their children elsewhere. Attempting to recapture dollars lost will force those public schools to raise the bar. And when they do, all students will benefit.
According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: As a legislative priority, rural education in Illinois ranks 43rd in the country. Yet, as we have seen, there exist choice-based reforms that can bring positive results to thousands of underserved Illinoisans … now. Each can be enacted immediately. Each can be enacted independently. Each deserves support within the General Assembly. And each would leave families and students far better served than under the failing status quo.
Collin Hitt is director of education policy and reform at the Springfield-based Illinois Policy Institute. He can be reached at collin@illinoispolicyinstitute.org.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Is Michigan's Largest School Employee Union Helping or Hurting Education?
The following is a link to a series by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
This is a must read series. Although this series is about the Michigan Education Association the information contained in the series could be applied to any of the teachers unions in the United States including Illinois.
This is a must read series. Although this series is about the Michigan Education Association the information contained in the series could be applied to any of the teachers unions in the United States including Illinois.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
Many of us have had problems with our State's Attorney offices following through with election interference complaints. We borrowed this line from someone but we totally agree with the statement "I'm starting to wonder if a yes person would actually be prosecuted for literally holding a gun to someone's head for a yes vote. " The antics will continue come November. The disgraceful behavior pro-referendum people in 158 and 300 used in past elections has set the bar for future behavior. They are counting on you not to speak out. Pro-referendum behavior and apathetic voters is the sure way to increased property taxes and reduced accountability on the part of our government schools. Your most powerful weapon is a no vote. Your second most powerful weapon is your voice you must be heard and not be afraid to speak out. Your third most powerful weapon is to stop re-electing elected officials who are beholden to public school employees, unions and those who do business with public schools.
Many do not want to speak out because their children our in school and they fear retaliation. But what kind of burden are you leaving for your children when they are taxpayers and parents? The public school employees will only become more wealthy and powerful and more difficult to fight.
School employees will be laughing all the way to the bank with retirement at age 55 and piles of money while your children will have to work well past 70 to pay for the tax burdens that you left because you refused to fight for education spending reform.
The following is a news release from National Taxpayers United of Illinois.
NTU NEWS RELEASE
NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNITED OF ILLINOIS
407 S. Dearborn, Suite 1170 * CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
(312) 427-5128 * Fax (312) 427-5139 * Web Site * E-mail
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2006
Contact:
Jim Tobin
(312) 427-5128
(773) 354-2076 (Cell)
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
CHICAGO-The president of Illinois' largest taxpayer organization today charged that the staff of the Public Corruption and Financial Crimes Division of the Cook County State's Attorney office has let taxpayers down by stonewalling a probe into violations of the Illinois Election Interference Statute (10 ILCS 5/9-25.1) by J. Sterling Morton High School Dist. 201. The alleged violations occurred when the district sought a property-tax increase of about $400 a year for the average homeowner through a referendum on the March 21, 2006, ballot.
"The local newspaper, The Life, reported that a fax machine with a phone number belonging to the Superintendent of Dist. 201 was used to promote a fundraiser of a political committee promoting the tax hike," said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTU). "Additionally, the paper reported that some district employees complained they had been forced to work on the campaign during school hours."
The paper also stated that a "Vote Yes" banner was hung on school property, that cheerleaders passed out pro-referendum ribbons during a school basketball game, and that the school web site displayed a message urging a "yes" vote.
"NTU sent a letter to Mary Bucaro at the Cook County State's Attorney's office on March 9, and a second letter on March 13, detailing evidence of the violations," said Tobin. "In a phone conversation that took place in mid-March, Ms. Bucaro told me the court's standards of evidence are high, and that courts want to see a 'line item' for political activity in the budget. She said that if I knew anyone with 'first-hand evidence,' these persons could call her, but otherwise she couldn't do anything."
The NTU staff spoke with a Dist. 201 parent, who called Ms. Bucaro and related a first-hand account of a superintendent and a principal from a public high school speaking and distributing pro-property-tax-hike literature on school grounds. Ms. Bucaro was unconcerned, and wanted to know only who paid for the literature and other materials promoting the referendum.
On May 25, NTU Executive Director, Jeffrey Babbitt, called Ms. Bucaro, and when she returned the call, she left a message that the State's Attorney Office would be taking "no additional action" because the evidence NTU presented "did not rise to the level of the very strict interpretation that the courts have made of the Election Interference statute in terms of actual expenditure of government moneys...promoting...a subjective 'yes' vote."
On June 15 Mr. Babbitt spoke to Ms. Bucaro's junior colleague, Lynn McCarthy, asking for clarification on what would "rise to the level" that courts expect. Ms. McCarthy told him that there was no easily accessible case law because "there aren't a lot of cases that go forward under this law."
"The lethargy of the State's Attorney's office in this matter is stunning,"= said Babbitt. "Laws get passed supposedly to protect voters and taxpayers, but these laws mean nothing unless they are enforced and honored by the judicial system."
Founded in 1976, NTU is the largest taxpayer organization in Illinois with over 10,000 members and affiliation with more than 200 local taxpayer groups. ###
Many do not want to speak out because their children our in school and they fear retaliation. But what kind of burden are you leaving for your children when they are taxpayers and parents? The public school employees will only become more wealthy and powerful and more difficult to fight.
School employees will be laughing all the way to the bank with retirement at age 55 and piles of money while your children will have to work well past 70 to pay for the tax burdens that you left because you refused to fight for education spending reform.
The following is a news release from National Taxpayers United of Illinois.
NTU NEWS RELEASE
NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNITED OF ILLINOIS
407 S. Dearborn, Suite 1170 * CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
(312) 427-5128 * Fax (312) 427-5139 * Web Site
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2006
Contact:
Jim Tobin
(312) 427-5128
(773) 354-2076 (Cell)
STATE'S ATTORNEY STONEWALLS MORTON DIST. 201 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ACT PROBE
CHICAGO-The president of Illinois' largest taxpayer organization today charged that the staff of the Public Corruption and Financial Crimes Division of the Cook County State's Attorney office has let taxpayers down by stonewalling a probe into violations of the Illinois Election Interference Statute (10 ILCS 5/9-25.1) by J. Sterling Morton High School Dist. 201. The alleged violations occurred when the district sought a property-tax increase of about $400 a year for the average homeowner through a referendum on the March 21, 2006, ballot.
"The local newspaper, The Life, reported that a fax machine with a phone number belonging to the Superintendent of Dist. 201 was used to promote a fundraiser of a political committee promoting the tax hike," said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTU). "Additionally, the paper reported that some district employees complained they had been forced to work on the campaign during school hours."
The paper also stated that a "Vote Yes" banner was hung on school property, that cheerleaders passed out pro-referendum ribbons during a school basketball game, and that the school web site displayed a message urging a "yes" vote.
"NTU sent a letter to Mary Bucaro at the Cook County State's Attorney's office on March 9, and a second letter on March 13, detailing evidence of the violations," said Tobin. "In a phone conversation that took place in mid-March, Ms. Bucaro told me the court's standards of evidence are high, and that courts want to see a 'line item' for political activity in the budget. She said that if I knew anyone with 'first-hand evidence,' these persons could call her, but otherwise she couldn't do anything."
The NTU staff spoke with a Dist. 201 parent, who called Ms. Bucaro and related a first-hand account of a superintendent and a principal from a public high school speaking and distributing pro-property-tax-hike literature on school grounds. Ms. Bucaro was unconcerned, and wanted to know only who paid for the literature and other materials promoting the referendum.
On May 25, NTU Executive Director, Jeffrey Babbitt, called Ms. Bucaro, and when she returned the call, she left a message that the State's Attorney Office would be taking "no additional action" because the evidence NTU presented "did not rise to the level of the very strict interpretation that the courts have made of the Election Interference statute in terms of actual expenditure of government moneys...promoting...a subjective 'yes' vote."
On June 15 Mr. Babbitt spoke to Ms. Bucaro's junior colleague, Lynn McCarthy, asking for clarification on what would "rise to the level" that courts expect. Ms. McCarthy told him that there was no easily accessible case law because "there aren't a lot of cases that go forward under this law."
"The lethargy of the State's Attorney's office in this matter is stunning,"= said Babbitt. "Laws get passed supposedly to protect voters and taxpayers, but these laws mean nothing unless they are enforced and honored by the judicial system."
Founded in 1976, NTU is the largest taxpayer organization in Illinois with over 10,000 members and affiliation with more than 200 local taxpayer groups. ###
2 school council members can keep seats
The piece below is an excellent example of how board members break the law but nothing happens to them. We have a huge battle ahead of us. You need to decide if you are going to sit back and take it or start to speak up. The following piece appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun-Times.
2 school council members can keep seats
June 4, 2006
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Two South Loop local school council members can keep their seats, even though they were won in an election in which six "seedy'' men were paid $5 each for their votes, a hearing officer concluded Friday.
Buying LSC votes may break the law, but the six votes were not enough to change the outcome of the election, so the results must stand, Chicago Public Schools hearing officer Stephen Pugh ruled.
During an earlier hearing, a resident of the New Ritz Hotel said on videotape that a man went floor to floor at the South Loop flophouse April 19, offering people $5 to vote in the nearby South Loop LSC election. Takers were told to punch 27 and 29 -- for LSC community candidates Enrique Perez and Jacques Eady -- the resident said.
'What a great example'
"The petitioners have demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that six individuals were paid to vote for Mr. Perez and Mr. Eady,'' Pugh ruled. "The penalty for any such violation, however, is in the hands of other authorities.''
South Loop LSC parent member John Jacoby, who challenged the election of Perez and Eady, said Friday's ruling "sent a horrible message.''
LSC members oversee school budgets, decide the fates of principals and vote on other school matters.
"I'm outraged that they are now representatives of the school when the hearing officer said, 'Yeah, they bought votes,' " Jacoby said. "What a great example for the kids at our school.''
CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said the case will be referred to the Cook County state's attorney's office for investigation, and CPS officials will review the LSC election handbook to see if it needs to be improved.
"Vote-buying should, if proven, make a candidate ineligible to serve,'' Jacoby said. "That's one sentence they can put into their handbook to resolve our issue.''
rrossi@suntimes.com
2 school council members can keep seats
June 4, 2006
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter
Two South Loop local school council members can keep their seats, even though they were won in an election in which six "seedy'' men were paid $5 each for their votes, a hearing officer concluded Friday.
Buying LSC votes may break the law, but the six votes were not enough to change the outcome of the election, so the results must stand, Chicago Public Schools hearing officer Stephen Pugh ruled.
During an earlier hearing, a resident of the New Ritz Hotel said on videotape that a man went floor to floor at the South Loop flophouse April 19, offering people $5 to vote in the nearby South Loop LSC election. Takers were told to punch 27 and 29 -- for LSC community candidates Enrique Perez and Jacques Eady -- the resident said.
'What a great example'
"The petitioners have demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that six individuals were paid to vote for Mr. Perez and Mr. Eady,'' Pugh ruled. "The penalty for any such violation, however, is in the hands of other authorities.''
South Loop LSC parent member John Jacoby, who challenged the election of Perez and Eady, said Friday's ruling "sent a horrible message.''
LSC members oversee school budgets, decide the fates of principals and vote on other school matters.
"I'm outraged that they are now representatives of the school when the hearing officer said, 'Yeah, they bought votes,' " Jacoby said. "What a great example for the kids at our school.''
CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said the case will be referred to the Cook County state's attorney's office for investigation, and CPS officials will review the LSC election handbook to see if it needs to be improved.
"Vote-buying should, if proven, make a candidate ineligible to serve,'' Jacoby said. "That's one sentence they can put into their handbook to resolve our issue.''
rrossi@suntimes.com
Stopping School Corruption
The following piece appeared at the Yankee Insititute.org. CRAFT suggests all tax fighters and concerned parents obtain the manual in the piece outlined below and read Armand Fusco's book School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust.
Stopping School Corruption
by Armand Fusco
Hartford, May 17, 2006 -- In a new manual for Nutmeg State taxpayers, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy outlines strategies to combat corruption in Connecticut’s school districts.
"Stopping School Corruption: A Manual for Taxpayers," by Armand Fusco, Ed.D., is designed to assist Connecticut taxpayers who are seeking responsible answers from districts about whether school resources are being protected from abuse.
Fusco's manual lists ten questions school boards should be asked to determine whether school corruption is being committed. Topics covered by the questions include asset management, credit cards, student-activity funds, state/federal grants, contracting, and personnel policies.
"This manual will be a powerful tool for citizen-activists all over Connecticut," said Yankee Institute Executive Director Lewis Andrews, Ph.D. "'Stopping School Corruption' is the latest step in the Yankee Institute's mission to supply helpful tools to the leaders of taxpayer groups, who are fighting important battles at the local level."
Fusco, the former superintendent of the Branford School District, is also the author of School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. The book, published last year, documented hundreds of examples of corruption in government schools throughout the nation.
"We must realize," Fusco said, "that Connecticut is no stranger to corruption in its school districts -- no state is. This problem can only be addressed responsibly and effectively by alerting the public and by generating outside pressure and public discussion. That's what the Yankee Institute is committed to doing."
Dr. Fusco holds a master's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. Since retiring from his superintendent post in 1992, he has authored many professional works, as well as a regular column, "Inside Education," which is published by several Connecticut shoreline newspapers.
"With 10 simple questions," Andrews said, "Dr. Fusco empowers citizens with the ability to discern if their school districts are really being run in the best interest of the community."
Yankee Institute Philip Gressel Fellow for Tax and Budget Policy D. Dowd Muska believes the release of Fusco's manual is timely, given the municipal-budget fights that are currently being waged across the state: "Adjusted for inflation, Connecticut more than doubled its spending on government schools between 1981 and 2001 -- despite a very small increase in student enrollment. It is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to demand greater transparency and better management of school districts."
The Yankee Institute is a think tank that creates new ideas for lower taxes and better government in Connecticut. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, donations to the Institute are tax-deductible. It is based on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford.
Dr. Fusco is available for print, radio, and television interviews. Contact Mary Crean at (860) 521-6164 or mary@yankeeinstitute.org.
The Yankee Institute
for Public Policy Studies
© 2006
Stopping School Corruption
by Armand Fusco
Hartford, May 17, 2006 -- In a new manual for Nutmeg State taxpayers, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy outlines strategies to combat corruption in Connecticut’s school districts.
"Stopping School Corruption: A Manual for Taxpayers," by Armand Fusco, Ed.D., is designed to assist Connecticut taxpayers who are seeking responsible answers from districts about whether school resources are being protected from abuse.
Fusco's manual lists ten questions school boards should be asked to determine whether school corruption is being committed. Topics covered by the questions include asset management, credit cards, student-activity funds, state/federal grants, contracting, and personnel policies.
"This manual will be a powerful tool for citizen-activists all over Connecticut," said Yankee Institute Executive Director Lewis Andrews, Ph.D. "'Stopping School Corruption' is the latest step in the Yankee Institute's mission to supply helpful tools to the leaders of taxpayer groups, who are fighting important battles at the local level."
Fusco, the former superintendent of the Branford School District, is also the author of School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. The book, published last year, documented hundreds of examples of corruption in government schools throughout the nation.
"We must realize," Fusco said, "that Connecticut is no stranger to corruption in its school districts -- no state is. This problem can only be addressed responsibly and effectively by alerting the public and by generating outside pressure and public discussion. That's what the Yankee Institute is committed to doing."
Dr. Fusco holds a master's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. Since retiring from his superintendent post in 1992, he has authored many professional works, as well as a regular column, "Inside Education," which is published by several Connecticut shoreline newspapers.
"With 10 simple questions," Andrews said, "Dr. Fusco empowers citizens with the ability to discern if their school districts are really being run in the best interest of the community."
Yankee Institute Philip Gressel Fellow for Tax and Budget Policy D. Dowd Muska believes the release of Fusco's manual is timely, given the municipal-budget fights that are currently being waged across the state: "Adjusted for inflation, Connecticut more than doubled its spending on government schools between 1981 and 2001 -- despite a very small increase in student enrollment. It is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to demand greater transparency and better management of school districts."
The Yankee Institute is a think tank that creates new ideas for lower taxes and better government in Connecticut. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, donations to the Institute are tax-deductible. It is based on the campus of Trinity College in Hartford.
Dr. Fusco is available for print, radio, and television interviews. Contact Mary Crean at (860) 521-6164 or mary@yankeeinstitute.org.
The Yankee Institute
for Public Policy Studies
© 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling? by Lewis Andrews
The following piece was sent to us by Kevin Killion of The Illinois Loop.org. If you are not a regular reader of the Illinois Loop.org besure to add it to your list. The piece below is published by the Yankee Institute. To view all of their articles on school reform be sure to visit the Yankee Institute website.
A significant and important article appears in the new July/August issue of The American Enterprise:
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis Andrews
The article is copied in its entirety below. I encourage you to note its observations about the state of suburban education, and where it might be leading. The key themes of the article are:
1) "Bell and whistle bonanza"
"While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. ... very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. ... Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor."
2) "Middle-class racketeering"
"The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence."
3) "Backlash on property taxes"
"With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004 ... clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. ... In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as 'kooks' and 'cranks' -- is becoming more politically sophisticated."
4) "Priced out and dumbed down"
"Perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children ... with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. ... Many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be. On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled 'Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement.' It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become 'horrified' by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today ... charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs." (This section has a nice mention of our Looper friend Margaret McIntyre, tireless education activist in Wilmette!)
5) "Mediocrity forever?"
"Certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. 'A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland' right now, says education expert Chester Finn. ... Public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue."
Make use of this article in your own local efforts! You are not alone in working for better education options in the suburbs!
The article is part of several articles on education in this July/August issue of American Enterprise (it's available at Border's and other stores with good magazine selections). The cover story on "Education Fairy Tales: Our 'money-starved' schools and other costly myths" also will be of great interest to some of the participants on the Illinois Loop list.
For more on suburban schools, see our roundup page at:
Illinois Loop: The Suburbs
http://www.illinoisloop.org/suburbs.html
-- Kevin Killion'
==========================================
THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE
July/August 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis M. Andrews
Lewis M. Andrews is executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, Connecticut
We are all accustomed to the idea that America faces problems in its public education systems. But mostly it's the other guy's school, in the city next door, where we think the troubles center. Suburban schools in neighborhoods with rising home prices -- those are the ones where U.S. education is just fine. Right?
Not exactly. Suburbia is afflicted with its own problems of public school mediocrity. That much is beginning to become apparent to some striving middle-class parents. And there's another threat stalking public education in upscale commuter enclaves that hasn't even begun to sink into the public consciousness: money troubles.
Bell and whistle bonanza
The tax base supporting public education in the suburbs is broad. Those who have no children contribute. So do families who send their children to private schools. Couples who have seen their children graduate and move out are also paying. The beneficiaries, meanwhile, are a much smaller group. Families with children attending public schools can easily net a yearly gain from the community of $10,000-$20,000 in educational services.
While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. Last year, a researcher at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy at Trinity College completed a study of every school district in Connecticut, a state noted for its affluent suburbs. Using per pupil costs and student scores on mastery tests, he found that very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. "Many affluent towns spend much more.. .for the same educational outcomes," the study concluded.
Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor. "Quality" has become a deceptive code word for an ever-expanding menu of non-essential services, hobbies, and recreational activities for school children and their families. These include low-cost forms of day care (both before and after school), expensive and eclectic sports programs, holiday "socials," subsidized recreation camps run out of public school buildings during summers and holidays, and a variety of school-day distractions for students like pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, media centers with state-of-the-art video technology, glitzy rooms overflowing with shiny electronic equipment, and even costly observatories, stadiums, and galleries.
High schools in commuter enclaves outside of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other large cities have curricula as diverse as many small colleges, offering credit for hundreds of nonacademic electives, including courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and television. The burgeoning cost of these services is only partially reflected in the staffing lines of annual school operating budgets. Much of the expense is buried in 20- to 30-year bonding for school additions and renovations. "Back in the 1950s and '60s," explains James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University, schools "were so much cheaper. You didn't have the bells and whistles. A lot of high schools now have TV studios, swimming pools, and computer labs. The schools have to be triple-wired and air conditioned."
Persuading taxpayers that high school pupils should have the right to take exotic electives has proven a surprisingly easy sell -- particularly since parent-dominated school boards have crafted mutually advantageous relationships with the educators they are supposed to be regulating. That's how we've ended up with thousands of suburban schools where all students are entitled to study video production or play golf at voter expense.
Middle-class racketeering
Margaret Tannenbaum, professor of education at New Jersey's Rowan University and formerly on the school board in her home town, notes that the resulting quid pro quos are never publicly stated, but always clearly understood. In most cases, she explains, parent board members know that being "supportive of the schools" is code for accommodating generous salary and benefit increases for unionized teachers and schools administrators. In return, even the most superfluous perks for suburban schoolchildren -- like academic credit for district-subsidized trips abroad -- are deemed "educational" by local school officials.
The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence.
For their part, educators have developed a language which makes the self-serving policies of parents and teachers appear pedagogically sound. More financially efficient alternatives are characterized as "too risky" or "cold-hearted." Costly requirements like smaller class sizes, which create a need for more teachers and administrators, are consistently praised for the "personal attention" and "individualized instruction" they supposedly offer students. Such glowing phrases are rarely used to describe Internet-based courses, however, though they too can provide truly individualized instruction, without the need to hire more educators.
Biased language is supplemented with selective statistics. Washington Post education writer Jay Matthew has noted how suburban principals brag about the large number of advanced placement (AP) courses their schools offer, conveniently ignoring the fact that only a fraction of the students who take them actually earn college credit by passing an objective test. Suburban administrators similarly boast about the high percentage of seniors that go on to college. Few care to find out how many of their graduates drop out of college, or are required to take remedial courses in math, reading, and writing.
The successful partnership between suburban parents and professional educators is facilitated by Americas continuing tolerance for a blatant conflict of interest, whereby a school board member is permitted to vote on an issue that can directly affect his own family. It is not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in many suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class racketeering. Under the banner of "advancing learning;' parents of district children and their public-sector allies collaborate to serve their own narrow interests, at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.
Backlash on property taxes
One need only observe the swarms of angry parents who descend on local politicians whenever the school athletic budget is threatened, or see the care school boards take not to offend the inevitable union monitor at their meetings, to conclude that the vested interests currently driving suburban education are firmly in control. Yet history shows that recipients of public subsidies inevitably court opposition from those who pay the bills. And suburban public schools are beginning to come under fire.
Those with the most obvious reason to be critical are voters without children in public schools, many of them increasingly restless under heavy and soaring local tax burdens. With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004, and are now approaching $300 billion -- totaling very close to what Americans spend annually on mortgage interest.
The true costs of suburban education are obscured in many parts of the country by regionalized school systems, which tap a labyrinth of funding sources, including state income taxes, state and local sales taxes, casino gaming licenses, and lottery profits. Nonetheless, clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. Led mostly by activist seniors, dissident taxpayer groups in Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas have succeeded in getting property-tax reductions on state or local ballots. Politicians in Nevada, Iowa, and Indiana have been forced to establish commissions on tax reduction; and the legislatures in South Carolina and Virginia are considering annual limitations on how much their localities can raise local levies.
In the Northeast in particular, where a long-standing tradition of each town managing its own school system gives local citizens the ability to vote on their school district budgets, a tax rebellion is clearly under way. ln a special report on Connecticut's 169 towns and cities, the state's Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) found that rejections of school budgets recently reached a peak "since ACIR started tracking these figures." Less than half of the budgets going to referendum were approved on the first vote.
In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as "kooks" and "cranks" -- is becoming more politically sophisticated. Just as the 1980s saw the creation of more than 40 state-oriented think tanks devoted to monitoring and shrinking the costs of government, so today there is a similar growth of county- and town-level groups. It is not a coincidence that the increased rejection rate of local budgets by Connecticut towns was accompanied by a doubling in the number of town taxpayer groups (from 25 to 50), with many employing spreadsheets, attractive Web sites, and well-researched policy papers.
Priced out and dumbed down
At the same time that watchdogs are becoming more effective politically, discontent is also brewing among some parents who in the past would have considered themselves beneficiaries of the public school system. In a 2003 book (written before the explosion in housing prices), Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren studied bankruptcy filings in America and found that the biggest squeeze on middle- and upper-middle-class families came from high mortgage payments and escalating property taxes on homes in towns with desirable public schools. Today, says Warren, "young parents buy houses with just three thoughts in mind: schools, schools, and schools:' The problem is that "in inflation-adjusted dollars, they're paying more than 70 percent more than their parents paid for a house." ln other words, lavish "free" public education is pricing many families out of homes and neighborhoods.
But perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children (between soccer games and class field trips) with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. University of Missouri political scientist Martin Rochester is one such parent. The low academic expectations at his own children's schools inspired him to conduct a 2003 survey of numerous suburban systems. He found many costly distractions from the basic educational tasks that should be the central work of schooling.
Another critic is Margaret McIntyre, a member of the Wilmette, Illinois school board from 1999 to 2003, who argues that the expensive infrastructure at suburban schools is intellectually counterproductive. "The spending on special programs, technology, and 'enrichments';' she writes, "actually crowds out time for math, reading, writing, geography, and history." She estimates that more than 40 percent of families in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs have been forced to pay for tutors and other supplemental instruction.
A recent poll on the subject of public education conducted by the Business Roundtable shows "overwhelming support for standards-based reform among all groups, regardless of race, income, or political party." Similar polls by the non-partisan Public Agenda suggest that many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be.
On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled "Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement." It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become "horrified" by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today, notes Joe Nathan, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change, charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs.
Mediocrity forever?
Could these political, financial, and academic trends combine to force a broad restructuring of suburban education? They might if there is a bursting of to day's inflated real estate bubble. The ensuing calls for proportional reductions in property taxes would surely increase pressure for a back-to-basics restructuring of public education. Rather than being a problem, such a development might be a good thing, to be welcomed by suburban parents now coping with mediocre public schooling by hiring tutors or sending their children to private or parochial institutions.
Even without impetus from home price distortions, change could come. Certainly the decades-old alliance between opportunistic parents and self-interested local educators is not nearly as sound as it appears. And certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. "A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland" right now, says education expert Chester Finn. In an era of globalization and heightened competition in education and jobs, more sober and realistic assessments of the training being offered by typical neighborhood institutions may become inevitable.
Take a critical mass of disillusioned and financially pressed parents, add in the growing political clout of taxpayers without school-age children, the lax oversight of district budgeting, and a tempestuous real estate market, and public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue.
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The Illinois Loop
http://www.illinoisloop.org/
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A significant and important article appears in the new July/August issue of The American Enterprise:
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis Andrews
The article is copied in its entirety below. I encourage you to note its observations about the state of suburban education, and where it might be leading. The key themes of the article are:
1) "Bell and whistle bonanza"
"While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. ... very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. ... Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor."
2) "Middle-class racketeering"
"The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence."
3) "Backlash on property taxes"
"With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004 ... clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. ... In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as 'kooks' and 'cranks' -- is becoming more politically sophisticated."
4) "Priced out and dumbed down"
"Perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children ... with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. ... Many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be. On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled 'Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement.' It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become 'horrified' by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today ... charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs." (This section has a nice mention of our Looper friend Margaret McIntyre, tireless education activist in Wilmette!)
5) "Mediocrity forever?"
"Certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. 'A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland' right now, says education expert Chester Finn. ... Public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue."
Make use of this article in your own local efforts! You are not alone in working for better education options in the suburbs!
The article is part of several articles on education in this July/August issue of American Enterprise (it's available at Border's and other stores with good magazine selections). The cover story on "Education Fairy Tales: Our 'money-starved' schools and other costly myths" also will be of great interest to some of the participants on the Illinois Loop list.
For more on suburban schools, see our roundup page at:
Illinois Loop: The Suburbs
http://www.illinoisloop.org/suburbs.html
-- Kevin Killion'
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THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE
July/August 2006
A Coming Crisis in Suburban Schooling?
by Lewis M. Andrews
Lewis M. Andrews is executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, Connecticut
We are all accustomed to the idea that America faces problems in its public education systems. But mostly it's the other guy's school, in the city next door, where we think the troubles center. Suburban schools in neighborhoods with rising home prices -- those are the ones where U.S. education is just fine. Right?
Not exactly. Suburbia is afflicted with its own problems of public school mediocrity. That much is beginning to become apparent to some striving middle-class parents. And there's another threat stalking public education in upscale commuter enclaves that hasn't even begun to sink into the public consciousness: money troubles.
Bell and whistle bonanza
The tax base supporting public education in the suburbs is broad. Those who have no children contribute. So do families who send their children to private schools. Couples who have seen their children graduate and move out are also paying. The beneficiaries, meanwhile, are a much smaller group. Families with children attending public schools can easily net a yearly gain from the community of $10,000-$20,000 in educational services.
While the vast majority of Americans have historically accepted a common interest in paying for the education of successive generations, today's suburban parents and educators have increasingly abused that sense of obligation. Families are more and more being provided with benefits that go far beyond any traditional notion of required schooling. Last year, a researcher at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy at Trinity College completed a study of every school district in Connecticut, a state noted for its affluent suburbs. Using per pupil costs and student scores on mastery tests, he found that very little of the heavy funding funneled into schools in wealthy commuter districts was spent on improved academic performance. "Many affluent towns spend much more.. .for the same educational outcomes," the study concluded.
Where then does this surplus money go? Much of what passes for a quality education today in America's prosperous suburbs has little to do with academic rigor. "Quality" has become a deceptive code word for an ever-expanding menu of non-essential services, hobbies, and recreational activities for school children and their families. These include low-cost forms of day care (both before and after school), expensive and eclectic sports programs, holiday "socials," subsidized recreation camps run out of public school buildings during summers and holidays, and a variety of school-day distractions for students like pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, media centers with state-of-the-art video technology, glitzy rooms overflowing with shiny electronic equipment, and even costly observatories, stadiums, and galleries.
High schools in commuter enclaves outside of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other large cities have curricula as diverse as many small colleges, offering credit for hundreds of nonacademic electives, including courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and television. The burgeoning cost of these services is only partially reflected in the staffing lines of annual school operating budgets. Much of the expense is buried in 20- to 30-year bonding for school additions and renovations. "Back in the 1950s and '60s," explains James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University, schools "were so much cheaper. You didn't have the bells and whistles. A lot of high schools now have TV studios, swimming pools, and computer labs. The schools have to be triple-wired and air conditioned."
Persuading taxpayers that high school pupils should have the right to take exotic electives has proven a surprisingly easy sell -- particularly since parent-dominated school boards have crafted mutually advantageous relationships with the educators they are supposed to be regulating. That's how we've ended up with thousands of suburban schools where all students are entitled to study video production or play golf at voter expense.
Middle-class racketeering
Margaret Tannenbaum, professor of education at New Jersey's Rowan University and formerly on the school board in her home town, notes that the resulting quid pro quos are never publicly stated, but always clearly understood. In most cases, she explains, parent board members know that being "supportive of the schools" is code for accommodating generous salary and benefit increases for unionized teachers and schools administrators. In return, even the most superfluous perks for suburban schoolchildren -- like academic credit for district-subsidized trips abroad -- are deemed "educational" by local school officials.
The existence of self-serving relationships between municipal officials and the public employees they supposedly supervise is hardly news. But suburban school boards and administrators are especially gifted in their ability to portray mutual backscratching to the broader taxpaying public as academic idealism. Organized public-school parents have in many places ensured that both Republicans and Democrats produce local candidates who think identically on the 65 to 80 percent of local expenditures that are related to public education. On most school boards and town councils, would-be reformers have little or no influence.
For their part, educators have developed a language which makes the self-serving policies of parents and teachers appear pedagogically sound. More financially efficient alternatives are characterized as "too risky" or "cold-hearted." Costly requirements like smaller class sizes, which create a need for more teachers and administrators, are consistently praised for the "personal attention" and "individualized instruction" they supposedly offer students. Such glowing phrases are rarely used to describe Internet-based courses, however, though they too can provide truly individualized instruction, without the need to hire more educators.
Biased language is supplemented with selective statistics. Washington Post education writer Jay Matthew has noted how suburban principals brag about the large number of advanced placement (AP) courses their schools offer, conveniently ignoring the fact that only a fraction of the students who take them actually earn college credit by passing an objective test. Suburban administrators similarly boast about the high percentage of seniors that go on to college. Few care to find out how many of their graduates drop out of college, or are required to take remedial courses in math, reading, and writing.
The successful partnership between suburban parents and professional educators is facilitated by Americas continuing tolerance for a blatant conflict of interest, whereby a school board member is permitted to vote on an issue that can directly affect his own family. It is not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in many suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class racketeering. Under the banner of "advancing learning;' parents of district children and their public-sector allies collaborate to serve their own narrow interests, at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.
Backlash on property taxes
One need only observe the swarms of angry parents who descend on local politicians whenever the school athletic budget is threatened, or see the care school boards take not to offend the inevitable union monitor at their meetings, to conclude that the vested interests currently driving suburban education are firmly in control. Yet history shows that recipients of public subsidies inevitably court opposition from those who pay the bills. And suburban public schools are beginning to come under fire.
Those with the most obvious reason to be critical are voters without children in public schools, many of them increasingly restless under heavy and soaring local tax burdens. With house assessments ballooning, the property taxes that support most schools are becoming onerous burdens for many newlyweds, widows, families with children in private or parochial schools, or older couples on fixed pensions. Property tax collections went up an average of 23 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004, and are now approaching $300 billion -- totaling very close to what Americans spend annually on mortgage interest.
The true costs of suburban education are obscured in many parts of the country by regionalized school systems, which tap a labyrinth of funding sources, including state income taxes, state and local sales taxes, casino gaming licenses, and lottery profits. Nonetheless, clearer connections are beginning to be established in many taxpayers' minds between skyrocketing public school costs and ever steeper real estate levies. Led mostly by activist seniors, dissident taxpayer groups in Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas have succeeded in getting property-tax reductions on state or local ballots. Politicians in Nevada, Iowa, and Indiana have been forced to establish commissions on tax reduction; and the legislatures in South Carolina and Virginia are considering annual limitations on how much their localities can raise local levies.
In the Northeast in particular, where a long-standing tradition of each town managing its own school system gives local citizens the ability to vote on their school district budgets, a tax rebellion is clearly under way. ln a special report on Connecticut's 169 towns and cities, the state's Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) found that rejections of school budgets recently reached a peak "since ACIR started tracking these figures." Less than half of the budgets going to referendum were approved on the first vote.
In what is perhaps the most ominous sign for suburban parents and public educators, the leadership of local taxpayer groups -- historically dismissed as "kooks" and "cranks" -- is becoming more politically sophisticated. Just as the 1980s saw the creation of more than 40 state-oriented think tanks devoted to monitoring and shrinking the costs of government, so today there is a similar growth of county- and town-level groups. It is not a coincidence that the increased rejection rate of local budgets by Connecticut towns was accompanied by a doubling in the number of town taxpayer groups (from 25 to 50), with many employing spreadsheets, attractive Web sites, and well-researched policy papers.
Priced out and dumbed down
At the same time that watchdogs are becoming more effective politically, discontent is also brewing among some parents who in the past would have considered themselves beneficiaries of the public school system. In a 2003 book (written before the explosion in housing prices), Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren studied bankruptcy filings in America and found that the biggest squeeze on middle- and upper-middle-class families came from high mortgage payments and escalating property taxes on homes in towns with desirable public schools. Today, says Warren, "young parents buy houses with just three thoughts in mind: schools, schools, and schools:' The problem is that "in inflation-adjusted dollars, they're paying more than 70 percent more than their parents paid for a house." ln other words, lavish "free" public education is pricing many families out of homes and neighborhoods.
But perhaps the most telling defectors from suburban education are the growing numbers of parents who believe that local schools are failing in their most important obligation -- to provide children (between soccer games and class field trips) with a challenging and academically sound curriculum. University of Missouri political scientist Martin Rochester is one such parent. The low academic expectations at his own children's schools inspired him to conduct a 2003 survey of numerous suburban systems. He found many costly distractions from the basic educational tasks that should be the central work of schooling.
Another critic is Margaret McIntyre, a member of the Wilmette, Illinois school board from 1999 to 2003, who argues that the expensive infrastructure at suburban schools is intellectually counterproductive. "The spending on special programs, technology, and 'enrichments';' she writes, "actually crowds out time for math, reading, writing, geography, and history." She estimates that more than 40 percent of families in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs have been forced to pay for tutors and other supplemental instruction.
A recent poll on the subject of public education conducted by the Business Roundtable shows "overwhelming support for standards-based reform among all groups, regardless of race, income, or political party." Similar polls by the non-partisan Public Agenda suggest that many suburbanites are just as concerned about low academic standards in local schools as urban and rural parents are known to be.
On April 28, 2001, the New York Times ran a front page story entitled "Parents Hungry for ABCs Lead New School Movement." It profiled Princeton, New Jersey parents who had become "horrified" by the poor quality of local education and founded a no-frills charter school, free from the yoke of district bureaucracy and dedicated to a more demanding academic curriculum. Today, notes Joe Nathan, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change, charter schools are starting to become more common in affluent suburbs.
Mediocrity forever?
Could these political, financial, and academic trends combine to force a broad restructuring of suburban education? They might if there is a bursting of to day's inflated real estate bubble. The ensuing calls for proportional reductions in property taxes would surely increase pressure for a back-to-basics restructuring of public education. Rather than being a problem, such a development might be a good thing, to be welcomed by suburban parents now coping with mediocre public schooling by hiring tutors or sending their children to private or parochial institutions.
Even without impetus from home price distortions, change could come. Certainly the decades-old alliance between opportunistic parents and self-interested local educators is not nearly as sound as it appears. And certainly many of the suburban schools just down the street are much less successful in getting top results than many parents glibly assume. "A lot of suburban Americans are living in a kind of fantasyland" right now, says education expert Chester Finn. In an era of globalization and heightened competition in education and jobs, more sober and realistic assessments of the training being offered by typical neighborhood institutions may become inevitable.
Take a critical mass of disillusioned and financially pressed parents, add in the growing political clout of taxpayers without school-age children, the lax oversight of district budgeting, and a tempestuous real estate market, and public education in America's suburbs could soon experience some jarring and unexpected changes. And you know what? That is long overdue.
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The Illinois Loop
http://www.illinoisloop.org/
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Saturday, June 24, 2006
Small Classes: Union Scam
Senator Meeks and our state government in order to placate one of their biggest political donors the teachers union have been touting the small class size scam. The following piece appeared in the New York Post and is posted at Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
Small Classes: Union Scam
June 12, 2003
By Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster
THE local teachers unions are circulating a new petition to push their perennial pet cause: reducing class sizes.
Never mind that various efforts across the country to shrink classes have consumed rivers of money and produced no discernable improvements in education outcomes. The unions know that a mandate to shrink classes does have onenear-inevitable effect: mass hiring of teachers swelling the unions' membership and bank accounts.
Class sizes could theoretically be reduced in other ways right now, as many as just under half New York City's teachers aren't in the classroom. But in practice, the unions' stranglehold on the system ensures that shrinking classes means massive teacher hiring.
Asking people whether they want smaller classes for their children is like asking them whether they want to have a personal chef everyone imagines he'll get Emeril shouting "bam!" right in his own kitchen. But there aren't enough really great chefs to hire one for everybody. Once you've hired Emeril, Julia Child and all four Iron Chefs, you have to start lowering your standards. So if every New Yorker were to get his own personal chef, you'd most likely get a teenage fry cook from a fast-food joint.
The same is true for class-size reduction. To dramatically cut class sizes by hiring many new teachers, New York would have to dip deeper into the labor pool. So the person in front of your child's smaller class would probably be significantly less qualified than the teacher your child enjoys now.
Smaller-class proponents often point to Tennessee's STAR project, which randomly assigned elementary-school students either to relatively small classes or to regular classes for four years. Princeton researchers found that where 40 percent of the regular-class students went on to take either the SAT or ACT college-entrance exam, 43.7 percent of small-class students took one of those exams a modest but significant gain.
But that test program stands in marked contrast to the track record of class-size reduction on a broader scale, which can only be done by hiring many less-qualified teachers. In 1996, California devoted $1 billion to its much-ballyhooed effort to shrink elementary-school classes. A Rand Corporation study shows that the students in larger elementary-school classes have improved at about the same rate as students in smaller classes, and concludes that no link can be shown between smaller class sizes and improvement in test scores.
But the study did find one major change: a breathtaking rise in the number of people without full credentials serving as teachers. The new policy obliged the state to add 30,000 teaching staff in just three years. By the end of this frantic hiring spree, teachers without full credentials had jumped from 1.8 percent of the total to 12.5 percent a sevenfold increase.
This fits the national picture: U.S. class sizes have been falling for half a century, with no sign of significant gain in education. The Education Department says there were 22.3 students per teacher in 1970; since then, the ratio has dropped steadily, to 15.1 in 2001. Yet over the same period, national test scores have been flat and graduation rates have fallen slightly.
Remember this if you're asked to sign the teachers unions' petition: When class-size reduction has been applied on a large scale, any gains from having fewer students in each classroom seem to have been negated by the need to hire less-qualified people to fill all those new teaching jobs. Large-scale class-size reduction has only two proven results: less-qualified teachers and much higher education costs.
All that extra spending may be delightful for the unions, but why pay more for less?
Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow and Greg Forster is a senior research associate at the Manhattan Institute's Education Research Office.
©2003 New York Post
Small Classes: Union Scam
June 12, 2003
By Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster
THE local teachers unions are circulating a new petition to push their perennial pet cause: reducing class sizes.
Never mind that various efforts across the country to shrink classes have consumed rivers of money and produced no discernable improvements in education outcomes. The unions know that a mandate to shrink classes does have onenear-inevitable effect: mass hiring of teachers swelling the unions' membership and bank accounts.
Class sizes could theoretically be reduced in other ways right now, as many as just under half New York City's teachers aren't in the classroom. But in practice, the unions' stranglehold on the system ensures that shrinking classes means massive teacher hiring.
Asking people whether they want smaller classes for their children is like asking them whether they want to have a personal chef everyone imagines he'll get Emeril shouting "bam!" right in his own kitchen. But there aren't enough really great chefs to hire one for everybody. Once you've hired Emeril, Julia Child and all four Iron Chefs, you have to start lowering your standards. So if every New Yorker were to get his own personal chef, you'd most likely get a teenage fry cook from a fast-food joint.
The same is true for class-size reduction. To dramatically cut class sizes by hiring many new teachers, New York would have to dip deeper into the labor pool. So the person in front of your child's smaller class would probably be significantly less qualified than the teacher your child enjoys now.
Smaller-class proponents often point to Tennessee's STAR project, which randomly assigned elementary-school students either to relatively small classes or to regular classes for four years. Princeton researchers found that where 40 percent of the regular-class students went on to take either the SAT or ACT college-entrance exam, 43.7 percent of small-class students took one of those exams a modest but significant gain.
But that test program stands in marked contrast to the track record of class-size reduction on a broader scale, which can only be done by hiring many less-qualified teachers. In 1996, California devoted $1 billion to its much-ballyhooed effort to shrink elementary-school classes. A Rand Corporation study shows that the students in larger elementary-school classes have improved at about the same rate as students in smaller classes, and concludes that no link can be shown between smaller class sizes and improvement in test scores.
But the study did find one major change: a breathtaking rise in the number of people without full credentials serving as teachers. The new policy obliged the state to add 30,000 teaching staff in just three years. By the end of this frantic hiring spree, teachers without full credentials had jumped from 1.8 percent of the total to 12.5 percent a sevenfold increase.
This fits the national picture: U.S. class sizes have been falling for half a century, with no sign of significant gain in education. The Education Department says there were 22.3 students per teacher in 1970; since then, the ratio has dropped steadily, to 15.1 in 2001. Yet over the same period, national test scores have been flat and graduation rates have fallen slightly.
Remember this if you're asked to sign the teachers unions' petition: When class-size reduction has been applied on a large scale, any gains from having fewer students in each classroom seem to have been negated by the need to hire less-qualified people to fill all those new teaching jobs. Large-scale class-size reduction has only two proven results: less-qualified teachers and much higher education costs.
All that extra spending may be delightful for the unions, but why pay more for less?
Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow and Greg Forster is a senior research associate at the Manhattan Institute's Education Research Office.
©2003 New York Post
Friday, June 23, 2006
Illinoisans have been snookered by educators
The following piece appeared in the Daily Southtown and also Students First. Click on the title above if needed.
Illinoisans have been snookered by educators
6/23/2006
By Jeff Grigoletti
Daily Southtown
This is a response to "Gambling to save education: snookered or hypocrisy?" by Bert Docter (Southtown, June 13).
I vote Illinois citizens were snookered, and not only by the recent lottery drama, but by the whole Illinois education establishment.
Failing to acknowledge that decades of massive educational funding has not increased general education standards or students' knowledge base, the Illinois Department of Education is as inept as it is monolithic. It should be scrapped in its entirety, and an independent investigator should investigate the collusion between teacher unions and the sycophant Democratic machine that keeps raising the cost of education with no discernable results. Can anyone say RICO?
How about this: Attach $10,000 to a pupil's over-stuffed backpack and let their parents decide which school is best. Let dedicated teachers and aggressive-learning schools fight for those dollars by being the best educators possible.
Given the choice between a corrupt bureaucracy with a proven track record of failure and accountable educators, driven by parents who actually have a choice in their children's education, snookery can be a thing of the past.
Jeff Grigoletti lives in Tinley Park.
Illinoisans have been snookered by educators
6/23/2006
By Jeff Grigoletti
Daily Southtown
This is a response to "Gambling to save education: snookered or hypocrisy?" by Bert Docter (Southtown, June 13).
I vote Illinois citizens were snookered, and not only by the recent lottery drama, but by the whole Illinois education establishment.
Failing to acknowledge that decades of massive educational funding has not increased general education standards or students' knowledge base, the Illinois Department of Education is as inept as it is monolithic. It should be scrapped in its entirety, and an independent investigator should investigate the collusion between teacher unions and the sycophant Democratic machine that keeps raising the cost of education with no discernable results. Can anyone say RICO?
How about this: Attach $10,000 to a pupil's over-stuffed backpack and let their parents decide which school is best. Let dedicated teachers and aggressive-learning schools fight for those dollars by being the best educators possible.
Given the choice between a corrupt bureaucracy with a proven track record of failure and accountable educators, driven by parents who actually have a choice in their children's education, snookery can be a thing of the past.
Jeff Grigoletti lives in Tinley Park.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Start time cuts students short
The following editorial appeared in the Northwest Herald newspaper on June 5th. When are educators going to start taking the education of our children seriously? 130 Juniors have to retake the test because testers could not follow instructions. The administrators are compensated well and have the luxury of retiring at 55 with pensions larger than most incomes of Harvard residents. The Northwest Herald was too forgiving of Ms. Mc Reynolds error. Than again the Northwest Herald all to often shows its bias towards schools and school employees. Trying hard is not enough when the future of these children's lives is in the hands of school administrators.
Start time cuts students short
[published on Mon, Jun 5, 2006]
Taking the ACT test is not fun. It is hours of hard, mentally and physically draining work.
More than 130 juniors at Harvard High school are among more than 600 statewide who will have to take the test again.
Not to improve their scores. But because their schools failed their students and the testing program.
Students took the test April 27. It was supposed to begin at 9 a.m., a new ACT Inc. rule. Tests did not begin at Harvard High School until between 9:42 a.m. and 9:52 a.m. because students were offered breakfast.
The intention was good; the result was bad. ACT did not score the tests because of the late start. High school Principal Michelle McReynolds found out May 16. Parents were not notified until the next week. It wasn't until Thursday that school officials met with parents.
It might not have solved the problem, but school administrators at least took responsibility for the error, and they apologized.
The state requires high school juniors to take the test. Many of them have studied long and hard to prepare for it because of its importance in college applications.
But Harvard High School counselors found help at two other schools, even though the registration deadline passed. About 60 Harvard juniors might luck out on June 10, the next date for testing. Woodstock High School might have 25 to 50 openings, and Rockford College might have 25. Crystal Lake South High School also might have some openings. Otherwise, students will have to wait until the next round of tests Sept. 16.
District 50 will reimburse students who retake the test. Students who needed the test simply to meet the state requirement do not have to take it again.
For others, college depends on it. Maybe some will do better the second time around. Then again, maybe not.
District 50 officials have done what they could to make things right. They made an unfortunate mistake.
But they found openings for some students to take the test June 10. We hope that it works out for all of them planning to attend college.
To view the article go to Northwest Herald.
Start time cuts students short
[published on Mon, Jun 5, 2006]
Taking the ACT test is not fun. It is hours of hard, mentally and physically draining work.
More than 130 juniors at Harvard High school are among more than 600 statewide who will have to take the test again.
Not to improve their scores. But because their schools failed their students and the testing program.
Students took the test April 27. It was supposed to begin at 9 a.m., a new ACT Inc. rule. Tests did not begin at Harvard High School until between 9:42 a.m. and 9:52 a.m. because students were offered breakfast.
The intention was good; the result was bad. ACT did not score the tests because of the late start. High school Principal Michelle McReynolds found out May 16. Parents were not notified until the next week. It wasn't until Thursday that school officials met with parents.
It might not have solved the problem, but school administrators at least took responsibility for the error, and they apologized.
The state requires high school juniors to take the test. Many of them have studied long and hard to prepare for it because of its importance in college applications.
But Harvard High School counselors found help at two other schools, even though the registration deadline passed. About 60 Harvard juniors might luck out on June 10, the next date for testing. Woodstock High School might have 25 to 50 openings, and Rockford College might have 25. Crystal Lake South High School also might have some openings. Otherwise, students will have to wait until the next round of tests Sept. 16.
District 50 will reimburse students who retake the test. Students who needed the test simply to meet the state requirement do not have to take it again.
For others, college depends on it. Maybe some will do better the second time around. Then again, maybe not.
District 50 officials have done what they could to make things right. They made an unfortunate mistake.
But they found openings for some students to take the test June 10. We hope that it works out for all of them planning to attend college.
To view the article go to Northwest Herald.
Board members gets Dist. 158 job with $101,000 salary
The following article appeared in the Daily Herald. If you do not subscribe to the newspaper you should. Mr. Gaunt has always done an excellent job when reporting about schools. It would be well worth your while to go back and read his articles how school districts tax more than promised and his bond series.
This story highlights the patronage and corruption that exists in our public schools. If you look at the board of your school district you will find that board members are often related to school employees. This is a great article. Nice payback to Mr. Stewart for being a yes man. Any chance they would have made the same exceptions for Mr. Snow or any other citizen if they had wanted the position? How about getting rid of tenure and teaching certificates, schools could then hire the best people for teaching jobs. Perhaps hiring real chemists and physicists, etc to teach these subjects would best aid student performance. How about getting rid of the requirement that administrators be certified as school administrators so they can hire more MBA's.
Public schools are nothing more than government schools that are plagued with waste, fraud, corruption and patronage just like other forms of government.
Board members gets Dist. 158 job with $101,000 salary
BY JEFFREY GAUNT
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, June 22, 2006
Huntley District 158 board members hired one of their own Wednesday night to fill a newly created, top administrative position.
Board member Glen Stewart will take over July 1 as the district's chief operations officer, a position created after the March resignation of assistant superintendent Mike Kortemeyer.
Stewart, who will receive a starting salary of $101,000, will be responsible for overseeing the district's transportation, food service, operations and maintenance and health services departments.
He will also serve as the district's liaison to village governments and home developers on growth issues.
"I feel confident that Glen has the capabilities to perform the job adequately and in the best interest of the school district," board President Mike Skala said.
Stewart, who has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, last worked as a general manager for a tool and die company. He has been out of work since March.
"I looked at that job description and said, 'That's a job I can do,'æ" Stewart said. "Instead of doing this as a part-time job, I can serve the district full-time, and that's pretty cool."
Board member Larry Snow, the only person on the seven-member board to vote against the appointment, lambasted the district for hiring one of its elected representatives.
"It's just political patronage," Snow said. "Friends giving a friend a high-paying job because he's out of work.
"I simply can't believe there's not another, more qualified candidate that applied for the position," Snow said. "This hiring policy is a sham."
In response, Steward said Snow objects to everything involving Stewart. "We're here to focus on the future," he said.
Stewart abstained from voting and Skala said he was not involved in any of the closed discussions on the position.
Stewart will have to resign his board seat before starting his new job.
District officials say he was the best person for the position out of the 14 who applied.
"One thing that Glen has demonstrated as a board member is his total commitment to the community and the students," said Human Resources Director Lauren Smith, who was on the committee that recommended Stewart for the position. "There's no question about what his motives will be in joining the district."
Smith said Stewart's 20 years of management experience, familiarity with the district and successful history as a project manager will serve him well in his new post.
But she also added: "The ability to lead and project manage, those are elementary compared to some of the visionary requirements and leadership skills. That's what Glen is going to be able to do."
Skala also defended the board's actions in light of Snow's criticism, saying it's up to district officials - and the superintendent in particular - to recommend the best people for the job.
"They still have to perform the job," Skala said. "If they're not performing the job, I would expect the superintendent not to recommend them for rehire."
Stewart has never been employed by a school district. But Skala said that wasn't a prerequisite.
In fact, board members changed the job title from assistant superintendent to chief operations officer so candidates wouldn't have to be certified as a school administrator. That way the district could attract applicants with business backgrounds, Skala said.
jgaunt@dailyherald.com
Headline spec: 2 col; 28pt NewBskvll SeBd BT Regular
Hire: District says official best candidate for the jo
This story highlights the patronage and corruption that exists in our public schools. If you look at the board of your school district you will find that board members are often related to school employees. This is a great article. Nice payback to Mr. Stewart for being a yes man. Any chance they would have made the same exceptions for Mr. Snow or any other citizen if they had wanted the position? How about getting rid of tenure and teaching certificates, schools could then hire the best people for teaching jobs. Perhaps hiring real chemists and physicists, etc to teach these subjects would best aid student performance. How about getting rid of the requirement that administrators be certified as school administrators so they can hire more MBA's.
Public schools are nothing more than government schools that are plagued with waste, fraud, corruption and patronage just like other forms of government.
Board members gets Dist. 158 job with $101,000 salary
BY JEFFREY GAUNT
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, June 22, 2006
Huntley District 158 board members hired one of their own Wednesday night to fill a newly created, top administrative position.
Board member Glen Stewart will take over July 1 as the district's chief operations officer, a position created after the March resignation of assistant superintendent Mike Kortemeyer.
Stewart, who will receive a starting salary of $101,000, will be responsible for overseeing the district's transportation, food service, operations and maintenance and health services departments.
He will also serve as the district's liaison to village governments and home developers on growth issues.
"I feel confident that Glen has the capabilities to perform the job adequately and in the best interest of the school district," board President Mike Skala said.
Stewart, who has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, last worked as a general manager for a tool and die company. He has been out of work since March.
"I looked at that job description and said, 'That's a job I can do,'æ" Stewart said. "Instead of doing this as a part-time job, I can serve the district full-time, and that's pretty cool."
Board member Larry Snow, the only person on the seven-member board to vote against the appointment, lambasted the district for hiring one of its elected representatives.
"It's just political patronage," Snow said. "Friends giving a friend a high-paying job because he's out of work.
"I simply can't believe there's not another, more qualified candidate that applied for the position," Snow said. "This hiring policy is a sham."
In response, Steward said Snow objects to everything involving Stewart. "We're here to focus on the future," he said.
Stewart abstained from voting and Skala said he was not involved in any of the closed discussions on the position.
Stewart will have to resign his board seat before starting his new job.
District officials say he was the best person for the position out of the 14 who applied.
"One thing that Glen has demonstrated as a board member is his total commitment to the community and the students," said Human Resources Director Lauren Smith, who was on the committee that recommended Stewart for the position. "There's no question about what his motives will be in joining the district."
Smith said Stewart's 20 years of management experience, familiarity with the district and successful history as a project manager will serve him well in his new post.
But she also added: "The ability to lead and project manage, those are elementary compared to some of the visionary requirements and leadership skills. That's what Glen is going to be able to do."
Skala also defended the board's actions in light of Snow's criticism, saying it's up to district officials - and the superintendent in particular - to recommend the best people for the job.
"They still have to perform the job," Skala said. "If they're not performing the job, I would expect the superintendent not to recommend them for rehire."
Stewart has never been employed by a school district. But Skala said that wasn't a prerequisite.
In fact, board members changed the job title from assistant superintendent to chief operations officer so candidates wouldn't have to be certified as a school administrator. That way the district could attract applicants with business backgrounds, Skala said.
jgaunt@dailyherald.com
Headline spec: 2 col; 28pt NewBskvll SeBd BT Regular
Hire: District says official best candidate for the jo
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Schools support free speech ----- sometimes!
When reading the story below we are focusing on the free speech issue not conservatism vs. liberalism. We put these stories up with caution, as we want the focus to be on free speech for all.
Take a look at the two stories below. The first appeared in the Las Vegas Review - Journal.com.
Jun. 17, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
District pulls plug on speech
Foothill valedictorian criticizes decision to censor her proclamation of faith
By ANTONIO PLANAS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Foothill High School Valedictorian Brittany McComb is pictured at her Henderson home on Friday. McComb's speech at the high school's graduation ceremony on Thursday was cut short because officials said its religious references crossed over into proselytizing.
She knew her speech as valedictorian of Foothill High School would be cut short, but Brittany McComb was determined to tell her fellow graduates what was on her mind and in her heart.
But before she could get to the word in her speech that meant the most to her -- Christ -- her microphone went dead.
The decision to cut short McComb's commencement speech Thursday at The Orleans drew jeers from the nearly 400 graduates and their families that went on for several minutes.
However, Clark County School District officials and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that cutting McComb's mic was the right call. Graduation ceremonies are school-sponsored events, a stance supported by federal court rulings, and as such may include religious references but not proselytizing, they said.
They said McComb's speech amounted to proselytizing and that her commentary could have been perceived as school-sponsored.
Before she delivered her commencement speech, McComb met with Foothill administrators, who edited her remarks. It's standard district practice to have graduation speeches vetted before they are read publicly.
School officials removed from McComb's speech some biblical references and the only reference to Christ.
But even though administrators warned McComb that her speech would get cut short if she deviated from the language approved by the school, she said it all boiled down to her fundamental right to free speech.
That's why, for what she said was the first time in her life, the valedictorian who graduated with a 4.7 GPA rebelled against authority.
"I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech," McComb said. "God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior."
In the 750-word unedited version of McComb's speech, she made two references to the lord, nine mentions of God and one mention of Christ.
In the version approved by school officials, six of those words were omitted along with two biblical references. Also
deleted from her speech was a reference to God's love being so great that he gave his only son to suffer an excruciated death in order to cover everyone's shortcomings and forge a path to heaven.
Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada, had read the unedited version of McComb's speech and said district officials did the right thing by cutting McComb's speech short because her commentary promoted religion.
"There should be no controversy here," Lichtenstein said. "It's important for people to understand that a student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech."
Lichtenstein said that position was supported by two decisions by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in 2000 and 2003.
Both cases involved graduation ceremonies and religious speeches given by commencement speakers. In the 2003 case, Lichtenstein said, the plaintiff even petitioned the Supreme Court to have the decision reversed, but the request was denied.
In 2003, the Clark County School Board amended district regulations on religious free speech, prohibiting district officials from organizing a prayer at graduation or selecting speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech or a prayer.
The remainder of the amendment allows for religious expression during school ceremonies.
Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and, therefore, may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content," it states.
"To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech is not school sponsored."
District legal counsel Bill Hoffman said the regulation allows students to talk about religion, but speeches can't cross into the realm of preaching.
"We review the speeches and tell them they may not proselytize," Hoffman said. "We encourage people to talk about religion and the impact on their lives. But when that discussion crosses over to become proselytizing, then we to tell students they can't do that."
McComb, who will study journalism at Biola University, a private Christian school in La Mirada, Calif., doesn't believe she was preaching. She said although some people might not like the message of her speech, it was just that, her speech.
"People aren't stupid and they know we have freedom of speech and the district wasn't advocating my ideas," McComb said.
"Those are my opinions.
"It's what I believe."
End of Reveiw-Journal article.
When viewing the information below think if the girl above wanted to talk about how her homosexual lover supporting her through school and without her she could not have become valedictorian. I am sure the ACLU lawyers would have supported her. This is about free speech for all. Schools want diversity as long as it is not intellectual diversity and you do not disagree with their point of view. How about free speech for all groups even those who believe in God? If this person were praising Allah would the school have supported the speech? Probably the ACLU often supports the Muslim community over the Christian community. Schools support students promoting referenda on school time but would they allow students who oppose referenda the same access? No they would not. Schools should not be pushing a liberal or a conservative agenda they should be educating children. Free speech should be for all and not some.
The letter below was sent to us from a parent in another school district.
June 19, 2006
National Education Association Set to Endorse Homosexual Marriage
Teacher's union begins plans to promote homosexual marriage in public schools
The National Education Association is set to endorse homosexual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6.
The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools.
The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, is found under the B-8 Diversity paragraph:
The Association... believes in the importance of observances, programs and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the roles, contributions, cultures, and history of these diverse groups and individuals.
The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, legal immigration, domestic partnerships, and civil unions and/or marriage belong to all these diverse groups and individuals.
Translated, that means the NEA will promote homosexual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America.
Take a look at the two stories below. The first appeared in the Las Vegas Review - Journal.com.
Jun. 17, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
District pulls plug on speech
Foothill valedictorian criticizes decision to censor her proclamation of faith
By ANTONIO PLANAS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Foothill High School Valedictorian Brittany McComb is pictured at her Henderson home on Friday. McComb's speech at the high school's graduation ceremony on Thursday was cut short because officials said its religious references crossed over into proselytizing.
She knew her speech as valedictorian of Foothill High School would be cut short, but Brittany McComb was determined to tell her fellow graduates what was on her mind and in her heart.
But before she could get to the word in her speech that meant the most to her -- Christ -- her microphone went dead.
The decision to cut short McComb's commencement speech Thursday at The Orleans drew jeers from the nearly 400 graduates and their families that went on for several minutes.
However, Clark County School District officials and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that cutting McComb's mic was the right call. Graduation ceremonies are school-sponsored events, a stance supported by federal court rulings, and as such may include religious references but not proselytizing, they said.
They said McComb's speech amounted to proselytizing and that her commentary could have been perceived as school-sponsored.
Before she delivered her commencement speech, McComb met with Foothill administrators, who edited her remarks. It's standard district practice to have graduation speeches vetted before they are read publicly.
School officials removed from McComb's speech some biblical references and the only reference to Christ.
But even though administrators warned McComb that her speech would get cut short if she deviated from the language approved by the school, she said it all boiled down to her fundamental right to free speech.
That's why, for what she said was the first time in her life, the valedictorian who graduated with a 4.7 GPA rebelled against authority.
"I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech," McComb said. "God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior."
In the 750-word unedited version of McComb's speech, she made two references to the lord, nine mentions of God and one mention of Christ.
In the version approved by school officials, six of those words were omitted along with two biblical references. Also
deleted from her speech was a reference to God's love being so great that he gave his only son to suffer an excruciated death in order to cover everyone's shortcomings and forge a path to heaven.
Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada, had read the unedited version of McComb's speech and said district officials did the right thing by cutting McComb's speech short because her commentary promoted religion.
"There should be no controversy here," Lichtenstein said. "It's important for people to understand that a student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech."
Lichtenstein said that position was supported by two decisions by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in 2000 and 2003.
Both cases involved graduation ceremonies and religious speeches given by commencement speakers. In the 2003 case, Lichtenstein said, the plaintiff even petitioned the Supreme Court to have the decision reversed, but the request was denied.
In 2003, the Clark County School Board amended district regulations on religious free speech, prohibiting district officials from organizing a prayer at graduation or selecting speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech or a prayer.
The remainder of the amendment allows for religious expression during school ceremonies.
Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and, therefore, may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content," it states.
"To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech is not school sponsored."
District legal counsel Bill Hoffman said the regulation allows students to talk about religion, but speeches can't cross into the realm of preaching.
"We review the speeches and tell them they may not proselytize," Hoffman said. "We encourage people to talk about religion and the impact on their lives. But when that discussion crosses over to become proselytizing, then we to tell students they can't do that."
McComb, who will study journalism at Biola University, a private Christian school in La Mirada, Calif., doesn't believe she was preaching. She said although some people might not like the message of her speech, it was just that, her speech.
"People aren't stupid and they know we have freedom of speech and the district wasn't advocating my ideas," McComb said.
"Those are my opinions.
"It's what I believe."
End of Reveiw-Journal article.
When viewing the information below think if the girl above wanted to talk about how her homosexual lover supporting her through school and without her she could not have become valedictorian. I am sure the ACLU lawyers would have supported her. This is about free speech for all. Schools want diversity as long as it is not intellectual diversity and you do not disagree with their point of view. How about free speech for all groups even those who believe in God? If this person were praising Allah would the school have supported the speech? Probably the ACLU often supports the Muslim community over the Christian community. Schools support students promoting referenda on school time but would they allow students who oppose referenda the same access? No they would not. Schools should not be pushing a liberal or a conservative agenda they should be educating children. Free speech should be for all and not some.
The letter below was sent to us from a parent in another school district.
June 19, 2006
National Education Association Set to Endorse Homosexual Marriage
Teacher's union begins plans to promote homosexual marriage in public schools
The National Education Association is set to endorse homosexual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6.
The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools.
The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, is found under the B-8 Diversity paragraph:
The Association... believes in the importance of observances, programs and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the roles, contributions, cultures, and history of these diverse groups and individuals.
The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, legal immigration, domestic partnerships, and civil unions and/or marriage belong to all these diverse groups and individuals.
Translated, that means the NEA will promote homosexual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Peyton Wolcott - Helping Parents And Taxpayers Implode Education, Inc.
The following is a link to Peyton Wolcott's website.
These are some of the quotes I have taken directly from her site.
"Education, Inc. and the Big Pot o'Money"
"Education, Inc. is the name I give to the messy intersection of education and
business, the place where noble values collide with greed and ambition--and the
easy grab at life's comforts."
She has a great site with a lot of information on the abuses of schools and the problems that plagues public schools. One of the must reads on this site is an article titled "ERDI Superintendents get $2,000 consulting fees to hobnob with vendors. " A few Illinois superintendents went to this conference.
To view more great information on this site click here.
These are some of the quotes I have taken directly from her site.
"Education, Inc. and the Big Pot o'Money"
"Education, Inc. is the name I give to the messy intersection of education and
business, the place where noble values collide with greed and ambition--and the
easy grab at life's comforts."
She has a great site with a lot of information on the abuses of schools and the problems that plagues public schools. One of the must reads on this site is an article titled "ERDI Superintendents get $2,000 consulting fees to hobnob with vendors. " A few Illinois superintendents went to this conference.
To view more great information on this site click here.
Monday, June 19, 2006
The Hidden Costs of Tenure
This is a reminder to readers to visit the website The Hidden Costs of Tenure. Scott Reader and the Small Newspaper Group did an excellent job of exposing the problems of tenure in our K - 12 system. It would be great to see a book by Mr. Reeder. Newspapers across America should do thorough investigative reporting of our public schools just as the Small Newspaper Group.
The article titles include but are not limited to the following titles.
Tenure frustrates drive for teacher accountability
School boards lose power to fire poor teachers
Student pregnant, DNA points to assistant principal; no firing
Impact of poor teachers cripples students for years
Teacher unions' clout keeps tenure strong
Schools resort to secret buyouts to get rid of teachers
Copyright ©2005 Small Newspaper Group
The article titles include but are not limited to the following titles.
Tenure frustrates drive for teacher accountability
School boards lose power to fire poor teachers
Student pregnant, DNA points to assistant principal; no firing
Impact of poor teachers cripples students for years
Teacher unions' clout keeps tenure strong
Schools resort to secret buyouts to get rid of teachers
Copyright ©2005 Small Newspaper Group
Sunday, June 18, 2006
D.C.'s Distinction: $16,344 Per Student, But Only 12% Read Proficiently
The following piece appeared on HumanEventsOnline.com.
D.C.'s Distinction: $16,344 Per Student, But Only 12% Read Proficiently
Posted Mar 23, 2006
The District of Columbia spends far more money per student in its public elementary and secondary schools each year than the tuition costs at many private elementary schools, or even college-preparatory secondary schools. Yet, District 8th-graders ranked dead last in 2005 in national reading and math tests.
D.C.'s public elementary and secondary schools spent a total of $16,334 per student in the 2002-2003 school year, according to a Department of Education study. That compares to the $10,520 tuition at St. John's College High School, a District Catholic school that sends almost all its graduates to four-year colleges.
Last year, however, only 12% of 8th-graders in the District's public schools scored at grade-level proficiency or better in reading in the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress tests that were administered in the District and all 50 states. Only 7% of the District's public-school 8th-graders scored grade-level proficiency or better in math.
Not one U.S. state can boast that a majority of the 8th-graders in its public schools last year had achieved grade-level proficiency or better in either reading or math.
How much money did your state spend per pupil while failing to adequately educate in reading and math the majority of students in its public schools? The answers are in the chart below.
They eloquently make the case for school choice.
The state spending figures below are the total median expenditure per student as reported in "Revenues and Expenditures by Public School Districts: School Year 2002-03," published by the Department of Education in November 2005. The NAEP 8th-grade reading and math scores were published by the Department of Education in October 2005.
To view the rest of the story and the chart associated with this story go to HumanEventsOnline.com.
D.C.'s Distinction: $16,344 Per Student, But Only 12% Read Proficiently
Posted Mar 23, 2006
The District of Columbia spends far more money per student in its public elementary and secondary schools each year than the tuition costs at many private elementary schools, or even college-preparatory secondary schools. Yet, District 8th-graders ranked dead last in 2005 in national reading and math tests.
D.C.'s public elementary and secondary schools spent a total of $16,334 per student in the 2002-2003 school year, according to a Department of Education study. That compares to the $10,520 tuition at St. John's College High School, a District Catholic school that sends almost all its graduates to four-year colleges.
Last year, however, only 12% of 8th-graders in the District's public schools scored at grade-level proficiency or better in reading in the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress tests that were administered in the District and all 50 states. Only 7% of the District's public-school 8th-graders scored grade-level proficiency or better in math.
Not one U.S. state can boast that a majority of the 8th-graders in its public schools last year had achieved grade-level proficiency or better in either reading or math.
How much money did your state spend per pupil while failing to adequately educate in reading and math the majority of students in its public schools? The answers are in the chart below.
They eloquently make the case for school choice.
The state spending figures below are the total median expenditure per student as reported in "Revenues and Expenditures by Public School Districts: School Year 2002-03," published by the Department of Education in November 2005. The NAEP 8th-grade reading and math scores were published by the Department of Education in October 2005.
To view the rest of the story and the chart associated with this story go to HumanEventsOnline.com.
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